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Purchases of homes across Greater 麻豆传媒映画by those from outside the region have driven up both home prices and rents by 5-10%, according to a joint UBC Sauder School of Business-New York University study, Out-of-Town Home Buyers and City Welfare.
By comparison, out-of-town buyers in New York are associated with a more modest home-price increase of 1.1% and rent increase of 1.6%.
Because the home ownership rate is around 65% in Vancouver, Sauder School professor Jack Favilukis said they had expected the benefits of these price increases to outweigh the cost, but found this was not the case.
鈥淲e were wrong,鈥� he said in a October 18. 鈥淲hile indeed, older households who own their home do benefit handsomely after out-of-towners show up, this benefit is not enough to offset the cost to others.
鈥淧oorer households, younger households and renters, despite being a minority, are more negatively affected because it is much more expensive for them to pay for housing going forward.鈥�
The 15% foreign-buyer tax implemented last year is 鈥渂etter than doing nothing,鈥� Favilukis said, but there would be better ways of promoting affordability.
鈥淪ome policies are better than others, and I think the foreign-buyers tax is one of the least attractive options,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ne reason is that, while it discourages future buyers, anyone who has already bought, and who is already taking housing away from the local market, suffers no consequences.鈥�
Favilukis said economists at UBC鈥檚 麻豆传媒映画School of Economics last year; this approach proposed a tax targeting property owners without ties to the local economy.
For the purposes of the new study, the authors assumed 10% of homes in 麻豆传媒映画are purchased by out-of-towners, but this was just an estimate, the authors said, as there isn鈥檛 any concrete data available.
The full UBC-NYU study can be found .
@EmmaHampelBIV
