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B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong says province-wide about 3 per cent of residential home transactions were by foreign nationals.
The provincial government Thursday morning released early data on foreign home ownership.
The information is based on three weeks of data, from June 10 to 29, since Victoria started requiring people who purchase residential property in B.C. to disclose their citizenship or country of residence if they are not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. De Jong estimates sales during this time, just over 10,000, represent about 10 per cent of projected total home sales for 2016.
The move followed public outcry that foreign ownership is contributing to skyrocketing prices in Metro Vancouver’s skyrocketing real estate market, but that its exact impact isn’t officially quantified.
Earlier, de Jong had said the government would need to collect the information for at least six months to a year before he expects to see any pattern. He also has said even if there is a pattern, the government would be reluctant to introduce a tax on foreign ownership.
The B.C. government’s efforts to collect citizenship data on foreign buyers could be an exercise rife with pitfalls, according to experts.
They say a simple citizenship clause is a superficial bit of data that can be circumvented by buyers and won’t give government a true understanding of market forces.
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