Victoria councillors will watch the region’s real estate market for another three months before considering any steps toward asking for foreign buyers property transfer tax here.
Councillors Ben Isitt and Jeremy Loveday had been seeking council support for having the provincial 15 per cent foreign buyers property transfer tax applied in the capital region.
They wanted Victoria to try to convince the Capital Regional District board to ask the province to apply the foreign buyers tax in the region. Revenue from the tax — a measure introduced in Metro Vancouver last summer — should be used to invest in affordable housing, they said.
The two agreed Thursday to postpone consideration of the issue for at least three months.
Loveday said provincial data from October shows a spike in foreign buyers in the capital region, to 6.3 per cent of all transactions (55 out of 879).
That compares with 3.5 per cent in the period from Aug. 2 to Sept. 30, according to the province. In the period prior to the tax’s introduction (June 10 to Aug. 1), foreign buyers accounted for 3.9 per cent of all transactions in the capital region.
In Metro Vancouver, the rate was about 3.0 per cent in October, compared with 1.8 per cent in September. Between June 10 and Aug. 1, foreign purchasers were involved in 13.2 per cent of residential property transfers in Metro Vancouver, compared with 3.6 per cent in the rest of the province.
Victoria councillors seemed more receptive to the idea of asking the province for authority to put a surtax on vacant or derelict properties.
Councillors referred the idea back to Loveday to Isitt to work with Mayor Lisa Helps to craft a motion to be presented to the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities.
