The Editor,
I support the new tax on foreign buyers fully, and feel it hasn’t gone far enough.
I am sick and tired of hearing the whining of the realtors who are involved in selling out our homes to foreigners at the expense of our own children who live and work here in B.C. It is a pretty sad state of affairs when your child is well educated and holds a job with compensation more than twice the average wage, yet struggles to afford a small condo and can’t afford to buy a detached home such as what they grew up in.
SEE ALSO: Poll finds strong support for foreign home tax
I don’t believe the low stats on the number of foreigners stealing our real estate out from under our children, as there are not that many millionaires living in B.C. who can pay over a million dollars for a home!
I would support not allowing foreign investment at all until our own youth are looked after, and pulling the licenses from real estate agents who deliberately look for loopholes for foreign buyers to rape our housing markets.
We received a pamphlet in our mail slot the other day from a firm stating that they have foreign buyers ready, which really angered me. The senior vice-president of sales for a South Surrey real estate company was recently quoted as saying that a high-end buyer from overseas is taking his millions to Toronto because of the tax. In response, I say good riddance to him and thank you to our new tax for doing that!
Houses are overvalued in term of affordability and I, for one, will not feel sorry for a rich foreigner who has to pay an additional $750,000 on a home that has been inflated to be priced at $5 million. If you have that kind of money, then the tax can’t hurt you.
The real kicker for me is when the managing broker at a specialty realty office asks the question, “Would you pay 15 per cent over-market for a property?” – when that investor wasn’t even fazed by paying over-market value by about 50 per cent to start with! Australia has it right when they protect their existing single-family dwelling neighbourhoods for their own citizens by not allowing rich foreigners to buy into them. That’s what we need to do here, too.
Arlene Laing, Surrey