A recent study released by a local realtor from Fair Realty shows a trend of declining foreign property buyers in Victoria over the past year.
According to the study, there were 53 property purchases made by foreign buyers in the Victoria real estate market in June 2017. Compared to that, there were only 6 in June 2018, making it a whopping 89% drop.
Moreover, the average price of property being purchased by foreign buyers has also gone down to $380,000 compared to $728,000 one year ago, suggesting that luxury home buyers were hit hardest by the tax.
The analysis attributes this decrease to the 20% foreign buyer’s tax, collected through the province’s Property Transfer Tax which was expanded to include Victoria earlier this year.
One concern raised in the study is that the higher end foreign buyers have switched to purchasing property through numbered companies and trusts in order to evade this tax, and therefore would not have been accounted for in this study.
However, as of September 17th, BC will be requiring all real estate buyers to disclose additional personal information when purchasing property under a numbered company.