Figures show B.C. foreign buyers tax set off completion frenzy before deadline
VICTORIA — Property purchase figures released Thursday by British Columbia’s government reveals a stampede of foreign home buyers scrambling to avoid paying an additional 15 per cent a tax in the days before the Aug. 2 deadline.
The numbers also revealed that the rush slowed to a trickle after the tax deadline, prompting B.C. Premier Christy Clark to suggest her government was responsible for reining in the province’s scorching real estate market.
“It’s fair to say we may have had an impact,” said Clark at a news conference in Kelowna. “That was the impact we wanted to have.”
Clark said the government imposed the tax on foreign buyers for Metro Vancouver homes in August in an effort to cool down escalating prices. She said the tax was also intended to give British Columbian residents a “crack at housing.”