The BC Real Estate Discussion Thread

[wiseupsucker]

so here's a question to put out there...

 

im just a regular BC dude. born and raised in langley, not from wealthy parents. made some mistakes when i was younger, got into cc debt...kinda drifting nowhere. never thought i could own my own place, always thought it was unachievable.

 

fast forward about ten years...got into a trade, excelled at it, made good money. paid off all my debts, got responsible, started saving.

 

finally bought a nicer townhouse in chilliwack for 365k with a decent down payment and a manageable mortage .(kinda think i lucked out cause its crazy here too)

 

so my question is, after doing all the responsible things(decent down payment, no other debts, emergency money in the bank..ect), am i gonna get screwed over if things fall and go south??

 

how bad will it be??

 

i suspect im not alone

 

gotta say im quite nervous

 

 

[taxi]

9 hours ago, wiseupsucker said:

so here's a question to put out there...

 

im just a regular BC dude. born and raised in langley, not from wealthy parents. made some mistakes when i was younger, got into cc debt...kinda drifting nowhere. never thought i could own my own place, always thought it was unachievable.

 

fast forward about ten years...got into a trade, excelled at it, made good money. paid off all my debts, got responsible, started saving.

 

finally bought a nicer townhouse in chilliwack for 365k with a decent down payment and a manageable mortage .(kinda think i lucked out cause its crazy here too)

 

so my question is, after doing all the responsible things(decent down payment, no other debts, emergency money in the bank..ect), am i gonna get screwed over if things fall and go south??

 

how bad will it be??

 

i suspect im not alone

 

gotta say im quite nervous

 

 

At $365k you really aren't all that leveraged. If the "big crash" comes, then you're probably looking at a 25% dip. It'd be short term though. If it's a property you plan to hold onto for 10+ years, it'll eventually go up even if it does dip. 

 

As long as you can comfortably afford your mortgage payments and there's no imminent reason for you to move, you'll be alright. 

 

The people who get screwed by crashes are the ones who can barely afford their payments and end up underwater by several hundred thousand dollars. For example if you bought a home on the westside of Vancouver for 1.5 million+ and had large mortgage payments and little equity, you'd be very exposed. If properties crash, expect to see a dip in the economy too. So many of these over leveraged people might lose their jobs. They're then stuck with a huge mortgage, negative home equity, and not enough income to make payments.

 

To me it sounds like you've been quite responsible. Assuming you can keep working, worst case scenario is that you have to hold onto your property for about 5 years while you wait for it to regain its value. 

[Mike Vanderhoek]

On 6/20/2017 at 0:32 PM, Harvey Spector said:

On 6/20/2017 at 0:32 PM, Harvey Spector said:

Nobody expects people on minimum wage to be able to buy a condo or any property.  But at the very least they should be allowed to rent a place in the City at an affordable rate so they don't need to live in their cars.  These prices have a positive correlation on rents.  The higher the prices the higher people will raise their rents to offset their borrowing costs on their mortgage.  Right now it costs $1800 just to rent a one bedroom condo in downtown.  If you want a basement suite it is $800-$900.  People on minimum wage can't afford that.  The City needs to step in and build more affordable housing so these people don't need to live in their cars.  So far the City has only cared about selling their land to billionaire real estate developers so they can sell multi million dollar condos to foreign entities.  The City needs to start using some of its land and resources to build more affordable housing, specifically in the downtown core and surrounding areas.  So far Christy and her cronies have not done that.  Maybe the NDP and Greens will change that.  We will see.

And that is the bigger problem, people are ok with their neighbors or people in their community serving their coffee, cleaning their washrooms, and providing all the entry level work that people take for granted but as long as they earn a wage that keeps them down and out of their way.

 

I believe Detroit it catching on to the realization that hard working people, at lower wage or on assistance can and should also be home owners, programs are underway to get the poor into the marketplace and own " tiny homes " with the ability to pay off in years which in turn gives them eligibility to apply for bigger loans etc and buy into their future.

On 6/20/2017 at 10:55 AM, BaiNongMin said:

I have some issues with this documentary film maker. Firstly, we need to stop appealing to min wage workers as if they have the means to buy houses. They don't that's why they work for min wage, theyre literally not worth anything more than what they get paid. Many of these min wage workers are immigrants whom the government seems dead set on importing on a large scale, which is painfully stupid seeing is how automation will slowly/ pretty quickly take the majority of these min wage service jobs. Infuriatingly enough the new arrivals are gobbling up a huge portion of our welfare system and will only continue to do so after the min wage jobs disappear. Secondly, our industries are not "gone", the government simply put a halt on them due to green energy concepts and government subsidies to those projects. Of course businesses don't want to invest in BC its too risky, they would much rather go to Saskatchewan. Especially since they are taxing those businesses to death with all this CO2 taxes and commercial taxes that kill jobs. Ive also hard of a movement tax soon to be implemented by the government that will tax people based on the amount of KMs you drive, ridiculous. Lastly, racism is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard. Its not racist to realize the majority of the buyers market is money coming from a communist nation with money that they aren't able to trace all the way back to its origin. Somehow single mothers are the principle buyer with no income of multi million dollar homes? obviously there is corruption, just look at the amount of Chinese only real estate agents that have flooded the market, they only deal with their own. Failure to see this and shutting down the conversation with shouts of racism is counter productive.

 

Thoughts?

If all this indifference, corruption and greed didn't play into things an honest hard working person who works two jobs at entry level dollars would be able to secure their own home. Again I find it disgusting and I truly believe many here and overall don't care or even think about it that their fellow community members no matter their origin who earn less should have to endure unrealistic rentals or situations where they are homeless. Or that we are ok with these people in our community not having a chance in hell of owning their own home because they as people are only worth what ? $ 12, 14, 15 dollars an hour not worth anything else lol. There is no reason for it and a hardworking person whether at McDonalds, a city worker, an architect, or engineer should have the same right to be in a position to own a home to build their future.

 

[kingofsurrey]

6 hours ago, Mike Vanderhoek said:

 

Broken BC.

 

So sad to see what has happened to my province.  My family came to BC from the UK at the turn of the century .....

 

To a province full of hope and opportunity as well as real Beauty.

 

Now we have ruined it.   I guess we are all to blame as what did we do to try to correct the GREED that was allowed to happen. 

 

[riffraff]

On 2017-06-25 at 1:19 AM, wiseupsucker said:

so here's a question to put out there...

 

im just a regular BC dude. born and raised in langley, not from wealthy parents. made some mistakes when i was younger, got into cc debt...kinda drifting nowhere. never thought i could own my own place, always thought it was unachievable.

 

fast forward about ten years...got into a trade, excelled at it, made good money. paid off all my debts, got responsible, started saving.

 

finally bought a nicer townhouse in chilliwack for 365k with a decent down payment and a manageable mortage .(kinda think i lucked out cause its crazy here too)

 

so my question is, after doing all the responsible things(decent down payment, no other debts, emergency money in the bank..ect), am i gonna get screwed over if things fall and go south??

 

how bad will it be??

 

i suspect im not alone

 

gotta say im quite nervous

 

 

Like hearing these stories.  Glad you got your $&!# together. Very similar too me.  

 

Good job.  Keep up the good work.

[riffraff]

On 2017-06-15 at 6:15 PM, Lancaster said:

Someone is offering me like $700k for my 2br condo in East Van which I got 2 years back at originally $475k (which I thought was already way overpriced).  

 

Part of me just feel like taking the money and run..... or maybe just HELOC that place, withdraw $100k from my investments and then just purchase another property and help contribute into the buying frenzy....

Edited June 27, 2017 by riffraff

[apollo]

Anyone know much about ottawa? I'm so fed up with the market here that I started looking around....

 

425K for a 4 bedroom house, WITH a pool... 

https://www.remax.ca/on/ottawa-real-estate/na-2145-saturn-crescent-ott_1064464-lst/

 

Surely this has to be a better investment than a 450sqft dump of a condo downtown vancouver? 

[bishopshodan]

On 20/06/2017 at 1:12 PM, Harvey Spector said:

 

Question for you Mr HS or any that may be of assistance.

 

Capitol Gains... If I sell one of my properties that was my primary residence for 15 yrs and rented it out for 2 years.

 

Will I be paying for the government assessed value for those 2 years or will I be paying a 2yr average based on the appreciation over the 17 yrs of time I've owned?

 

I read that once you rent out it's like you're selling and if you move back in you re-buy in theory.

You can probably see where I'm going with this, looking to pay the lesser avg number ( its a dt condo).....and I feel like I already know the answer, cause well....government. 

[Harvey Spector]

44 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

Question for you Mr HS or any that may be of assistance.

 

Capitol Gains... If I sell one of my properties that was my primary residence for 15 yrs and rented it out for 2 years.

 

Will I be paying for the government assessed value for those 2 years or will I be paying a 2yr average based on the appreciation over the 17 yrs of time I've owned?

 

I read that once you rent out it's like you're selling and if you move back in you re-buy in theory.

You can probably see where I'm going with this, looking to pay the lesser avg number ( its a dt condo).....and I feel like I already know the answer, cause well....government. 

Hi there. If the home was your principal residence for 15 years and you turned it into a rental then you would have a deemed disposition at the time you switched. You effectively sold it without selling it. However you would be exempt from any capital gains for those 15 years as you would qualify for the principal residence exemption. 

 

Once it's turned into a rental and it is ultimately sold then you have another deemed disposition and you would be responsible to pay any capital gains from the time you rented it out. So your capital gains would be only for the two year period that it was a rental. The capital gains is basd on the fair market value of the property at the time it was sold. And the capital gains tax is 50% of the actual gains minus any expenses, i.e commissions.  You would have to fill out Schedule 3 along with your taxes for the year that the property was sold. Hope that helps. 

 

http://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/propertyrental/changeinuse.htm

 

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/ncm-tx/rtrn/cmpltng/rprtng-ncm/lns101-170/127/rsdnc/menu-eng.html

[bishopshodan]

4 hours ago, Harvey Spector said:

Hi there. If the home was your principal residence for 15 years and you turned it into a rental then you would have a deemed disposition at the time you switched. You effectively sold it without selling it. However you would be exempt from any capital gains for those 15 years as you would qualify for the principal residence exemption. 

 

Once it's turned into a rental and it is ultimately sold then you have another deemed disposition and you would be responsible to pay any capital gains from the time you rented it out. So your capital gains would be only for the two year period that it was a rental. The capital gains is basd on the fair market value of the property at the time it was sold. And the capital gains tax is 50% of the actual gains minus any expenses, i.e commissions.  You would have to fill out Schedule 3 along with your taxes for the year that the property was sold. Hope that helps. 

 

http://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/propertyrental/changeinuse.htm

 

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/ncm-tx/rtrn/cmpltng/rprtng-ncm/lns101-170/127/rsdnc/menu-eng.html

Thank you. I think one used to be able to just move back in for a year or 2 and it was exempt. ahh well.

Anyway, its annoying that you have to pay income tax on your rent profit and then capital gains on you sales profit ( and it just had to go up 100k last year alone).

 

Don't get me wrong, I'll make a mint on this sale. It's just I'm not the type to give the government more money than I have to ( who is?). Was hoping for a loophole I guess.

 

btw, I like you soo much more in this thread  ( <<<<emoto just for you)

[Harvey Spector]

2 hours ago, bishopshodan said:

Thank you. I think one used to be able to just move back in for a year or 2 and it was exempt. ahh well.

Anyway, its annoying that you have to pay income tax on your rent profit and then capital gains on you sales profit ( and it just had to go up 100k last year alone).

 

Don't get me wrong, I'll make a mint on this sale. It's just I'm not the type to give the government more money than I have to ( who is?). Was hoping for a loophole I guess.

 

btw, I like you soo much more in this thread  ( <<<<emoto just for you)

Haha, thanks!  The real Harvey is the one posting in this thread. The Harvey in the other thread is just sh*t posting and having fun with my left wing buddies...  

 

You CAN make an election to designate your rental property as your principal residence for up to 4 years as long as you don't designate any other property as your principal residence.  You would still have to claim your rental income.  So not sure your situation but that could be an option for you if you haven't used any other property as a principal residence. At the end of the day only one property can be used as a principal residence at any one time in order to get the principal residence exemption. 

Edited July 1, 2017 by Harvey Spector

[Warhippy]

Now.

 

The Pest analysis comes in to play does it not Harvey?

 

Political

Economical

Social

Technological

 

Politically we just saw the landscape change to two parties that ran on platforms to seriously curtail wealth status properties, speculatory building and to dry up the idea of foreign ownership via levies taxes and more.  All told a million dollar home purchased from outside the country by a non resident could cost in excess of 65% of the total home value in taxes.  That will have a serious effect on things, that is if all of the promises from the Greens and NDP come to fruition.

 

Economically we are seeing professionals in the STEM fields not being able to purchase even moderate homes in vancouver.  Family incomes in excess of $200k per year are unable to buy even mid level homes.  This does not even include rental issues in which a place like Keremeos or Cawston BC are charging $1550 a month for a 3 bedroom (cities with populations under 5000) and my area of Penticton seeing a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom condo unit renting for $2250 a month.  With wages in the province all but flat over the last decade this is no longer sustainable for people to simply live.  the average median monthly income is now seeing in excess of 55% going to home rental or purchase.

 

Socially we are seeing people finally demanding change.  This is no longer a, we can just move elsewhere scenario.  it is province wide.  When double wide trailers in ft nelson are commanding $200k  people are demanding change.  Endless petitions, demonstrations and calls for action to solve the wage inequality and housing crisis.  Not to mention the so called new growing class of "well dressed homeless" comprised of individuals making more than $40k a year living out of their vehicles or couch surfing.

 

Technologically is the big one.  One of the last bastions of middle income earning in BC is manufacturing.  BC is set to lose an estimated 18,000 jobs over the next 2 years to automation.  Factor that in with people now finding information after BCREA and the government started posting day to day statistics on everything from housing to wages and people are informed, educated and can see what is happening.

 

Summarily put, we are seeing every single aspect of the common driver PEST factors in play and these are almost universally indicators of upcoming change.

[TGokou]

On 6/25/2017 at 1:19 AM, wiseupsucker said:

so here's a question to put out there...

 

im just a regular BC dude. born and raised in langley, not from wealthy parents. made some mistakes when i was younger, got into cc debt...kinda drifting nowhere. never thought i could own my own place, always thought it was unachievable.

 

fast forward about ten years...got into a trade, excelled at it, made good money. paid off all my debts, got responsible, started saving.

 

finally bought a nicer townhouse in chilliwack for 365k with a decent down payment and a manageable mortage .(kinda think i lucked out cause its crazy here too)

 

so my question is, after doing all the responsible things(decent down payment, no other debts, emergency money in the bank..ect), am i gonna get screwed over if things fall and go south??

 

how bad will it be??

 

i suspect im not alone

 

gotta say im quite nervous

 

 

From a leverage point of view I think you'll be fine. My main worry for you is that your in the trades which would be hit particularly hard if a recession ever hit BC. My advice is make sure you save a rainy day fund that will cover at least six months of mortgage payments should you get laid off.

[Harvey Spector]

What the BC NDP and Green government means for real estate

 

June 30, 2017

 

On June 29, the Lieutenant-Governor asked the BC NDP to form government. 

 

The BC NDP and Green parties released a 10-page joint agreement on May 30 that describes the foundation of their relationship including consultation and dispute resolution, and highlights priority issues.

 

Real estate is mentioned just once in the agreement in section 4(b), where the parties agree to:

 

“Make housing more affordable by increasing the supply of affordable housing and take action to deal with the speculation and fraud that is driving up house prices.”

 

Based on party platforms, and by the parties’ comments at our Provincial Housing Forum held on April 9, here’s what we might expect:

 

BC NDP Party

NDP election platform

Market housing

• Provide a tax credit of up to $20,000 to create rental basement suites. 
• Establish a multi-agency task force to fight tax fraud and money laundering in the real estate marketplace.
• Keep 15 per cent foreign buyers tax in Metro Vancouver.
• Implement a 2% absentee speculators’ tax and direct revenue into a housing affordability fund to support housing affordability initiatives province-wide.
• Review the BC Home Owner Mortgage and Equity Loan program (up to $37,500 interest matching down payment loan up to $37,500).

Market and rental housing

• Build 114,000 rental, social, co-op and owner purchase homes over 10 years through partnerships. Homes will be a mix of housing for students, singles, seniors, and families. In urban and suburban centers, will build affordable housing near transit hubs.
• Use public land to build affordable housing.

Rental housing

• Bring in an annual $400 renter’s rebate.
• End the fixed-term lease loophole and ensure controls on rent increases are enforced.
• Pass legislation requiring fair treatment during renovations and demolitions of rental properties.
• Tighten rules protecting good landlords and tenants.
• Provide resources so the Residential Tenancy Branch can resolve disputes fairly and quickly.
• Tax short-stay home rentals that take properties out of the rental pool.
• Reinvest in and support co-op housing.
• Allow municipalities to zone areas where only rental buildings can be built.
• Allow colleges and universities to build affordable on- and near-campus rental housing.

Taxes

• Increase corporate income tax to 12% from 11%.
• Cut small business tax rate to 2%.
• Increase taxes on individuals with incomes over $150,000.

Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR)

• Revitalize the land reserve and the Agricultural Land Commission.

Transportation

• The George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project would be put on hold.

Fuel

• The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would be put on hold. 

 

BC Green Party

BC Green Party election platform

Market housing

• Work with the federal government to introduce measures to eliminate money laundering and international property speculation.
• Introduce a sliding Property Transfer Tax (PTT) with rates from zero per cent on the first $200,000 to 12% on property valued $3+ million.
• Apply the PTT to the transfer of beneficial ownership (the person for whom the property is being held in trust).
• Introduce a speculation PTT to discourage property flipping.
• Expand the foreign buyers tax to apply across BC, and increase it to 30%.
• Tax lifetime capital gains of more than $750,000 on principal residences.
• Work with financial institutions and the federal government to develop protections for recent home buyers negatively affected by market cooling initiatives.
• Make the home owner grant income-based.
• Introduce a progressive property tax system that imposes a surtax based on property value and allows home owners to credit rental income and their previous year’s BC income tax against the surtax.
• Establish an incentive program for commercial building retrofits.

Rental housing

• Invest $750 million per year to help build 4,000 affordable housing units per year.
• Work with federal and local governments to make land available to build affordable housing.
• Work with social housing agencies and federal and local governments to develop and implement a provincial housing plan to increase the supply of affordable rental units.
• Lead a comprehensive rethink of zoning to ensure it includes affordable housing densification along transit corridors, revitalizing neighbourhoods surrounding schools, cultural and social amenities and complete communities.
• Invest $100 million in retrofits and renovations of older social housing units.
• Partner with First Nations, non-profit developers, co-operatives and the private sector to support planning and construction of low income rental units.
• Introduce incentives to build or convert existing buildings for rental property.
• Update the Residential Tenancy Act to control rent increases and protect tenants.
• Work with BC Housing to include private rental properties in their portfolio of affordable housing.
• Maintain or enhance existing housing support programs to address income security.

Agricultural Land Reserve

• Enhance protection of farm land and increase proportion of ALR land in use for agricultural purposes.

Taxes

• Increase corporate tax rate to 12% from 11%.
• Increase share of tax contributed by those earning over $108,460 per year (by 1% in 2017/18, rising to 3% in 2020/21).

Transportation

• The George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project will be put on hold.

Fuel

• The Trans Mountain pipeline will be put on hold.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Harvey Spector

[Harvey Spector]

On 2017-06-30 at 8:15 PM, Warhippy said:

Now.

 

The Pest analysis comes in to play does it not Harvey?

 

Political

Economical

Social

Technological

 

Politically we just saw the landscape change to two parties that ran on platforms to seriously curtail wealth status properties, speculatory building and to dry up the idea of foreign ownership via levies taxes and more.  All told a million dollar home purchased from outside the country by a non resident could cost in excess of 65% of the total home value in taxes.  That will have a serious effect on things, that is if all of the promises from the Greens and NDP come to fruition.

 

Economically we are seeing professionals in the STEM fields not being able to purchase even moderate homes in vancouver.  Family incomes in excess of $200k per year are unable to buy even mid level homes.  This does not even include rental issues in which a place like Keremeos or Cawston BC are charging $1550 a month for a 3 bedroom (cities with populations under 5000) and my area of Penticton seeing a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom condo unit renting for $2250 a month.  With wages in the province all but flat over the last decade this is no longer sustainable for people to simply live.  the average median monthly income is now seeing in excess of 55% going to home rental or purchase.

 

Socially we are seeing people finally demanding change.  This is no longer a, we can just move elsewhere scenario.  it is province wide.  When double wide trailers in ft nelson are commanding $200k  people are demanding change.  Endless petitions, demonstrations and calls for action to solve the wage inequality and housing crisis.  Not to mention the so called new growing class of "well dressed homeless" comprised of individuals making more than $40k a year living out of their vehicles or couch surfing.

 

Technologically is the big one.  One of the last bastions of middle income earning in BC is manufacturing.  BC is set to lose an estimated 18,000 jobs over the next 2 years to automation.  Factor that in with people now finding information after BCREA and the government started posting day to day statistics on everything from housing to wages and people are informed, educated and can see what is happening.

 

Summarily put, we are seeing every single aspect of the common driver PEST factors in play and these are almost universally indicators of upcoming change.

I think once this new coalition government takes shape we will see some changes to the real estate market. I just can't see how this market can continue unabated indefinitely without some major shift in pricing and affordability. 

 

I looked at Chilliwack the other day and townhomes are selling in the $500k range. That's insane.  People were shifting out there for the "affordability" aspect and sacrificing living in the City because of it. But if you need to pay over $500k for a townhouse in Chilliwack then it's not really affordable for the average person with a downpayment under $100k. 

 

I see a busy fall market. I'm still writing offers on condos that have multiple offers (5-6 offers) on them so the sale prices are way over asking. Based on the number of buyers out there I don't see this slowing down in the fall. 

 

2018 is where I see a shift. Depending on what the Bank of Canada does next year in regards to interest rates and what the new coalition government does in terms of fiscal policy we could see a shift and a slowing down of the market. Now sure if prices wil actually fall next year but if we can at the very least get a slowing down of market with flat prices then that is a good start. 

 

We we will see what happens. I'm not too confident this NDP/Green coalition will survive. They may go too much over to the left which BC won't tolerate. Best case scenario is Christy Clark gets the boot, the Liberals get a better leader with a much better vision and then they come back into power over the next 18 months. 

Edited July 3, 2017 by Harvey Spector

[Warhippy]

On 7/2/2017 at 5:43 PM, Harvey Spector said:

I think once this new coalition government takes shape we will see some changes to the real estate market. I just can't see how this market can continue unabated indefinitely without some major shift in pricing and affordability. 

 

I looked at Chilliwack the other day and townhomes are selling in the $500k range. That's insane.  People were shifting out there for the "affordability" aspect and sacrificing living in the City because of it. But if you need to pay over $500k for a townhouse in Chilliwack then it's not really affordable for the average person with a downpayment under $100k. 

 

I see a busy fall market. I'm still writing offers on condos that have multiple offers (5-6 offers) on them so the sale prices are way over asking. Based on the number of buyers out there I don't see this slowing down in the fall. 

 

2018 is where I see a shift. Depending on what the Bank of Canada does next year in regards to interest rates and what the new coalition government does in terms of fiscal policy we could see a shift and a slowing down of the market. Now sure if prices wil actually fall next year but if we can at the very least get a slowing down of market with flat prices then that is a good start. 

 

We we will see what happens. I'm not too confident this NDP/Green coalition will survive. They may go too much over to the left which BC won't tolerate. Best case scenario is Christy Clark gets the boot, the Liberals get a better leader with a much better vision and then they come back into power over the next 18 months. 

Interest rate increase expected as early as next tuesday.  Estimates say that they will increase it again come the fall.

 

New government in both promised to curb the foreign buying, speculatory flipping and tax empty homes.

 

I'd be shocked if we didn't see major movement as early as January

[bishopshodan]

On 30/06/2017 at 7:44 PM, Harvey Spector said:

Haha, thanks!  The real Harvey is the one posting in this thread. The Harvey in the other thread is just sh*t posting and having fun with my left wing buddies...  

 

You CAN make an election to designate your rental property as your principal residence for up to 4 years as long as you don't designate any other property as your principal residence.  You would still have to claim your rental income.  So not sure your situation but that could be an option for you if you haven't used any other property as a principal residence. At the end of the day only one property can be used as a principal residence at any one time in order to get the principal residence exemption. 

This is awesome, Thanks. I'll save you the details but I might qualify. It's definitely worth an hour with a tax accountant.

[taxi]

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/property-owners-panic-as-vacancy-tax-takes-effect-1.4190576

 

Quote

Vancouver's empty homes tax came into effect over the weekend, causing some property owners to scramble to rent, sell or find a way around the fees, according to one property manager. 

 

Cameron Fazli is with Re/Max Crest Realty. He has seen a spike in calls from concerned owners looking for advice and solutions, he told CBC guest host of On The Coast Gloria Macarenko.    

 

"We are getting a lot of calls from people who are unsure what they are going to do," Fazli said. "There is a lot of uncertainty and definitely a lot of unhappy property owners."

• Number of empty homes in Vancouver hits record high
• City of Vancouver approves empty homes tax

 

 

Under the new rules, homes that are not occupied for at least six months of the year are subject to a tax of one per cent of the property's assessed value. The deadline to rent out empty dwellings was July 1.

Cry me a river....

[Warhippy]

7 minutes ago, taxi said:

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/property-owners-panic-as-vacancy-tax-takes-effect-1.4190576

 

Cry me a river....

I...I just feel so bad for these people.

 

Who are even now trying to find viable ways out of this without affecting their bottom line

[taxi]

Just now, Warhippy said:

I...I just feel so bad for these people.

 

Who are even now trying to find viable ways out of this without affecting their bottom line

....and they've only had like 8 months to find renters....despite the city telling them directly what the consequences would be if they didn't.

 

Honestly though, this law is going to be tough to enforce, as I'm not sure how the city will actually find a way to decided what homes are occupied and which ones aren't. I am really hoping a bunch of people declare their homes their principle residence on their declarations to avoid a few thousand in tax....and then they are forced to pay Canadian income tax on all of their income, as they would be considered Canadian residents.