I suspect it's a sign that they're a lot more leveraged than one might expect. These people are not paying cash as long as money is near-free. They'd be total f

I suspect it's a sign that they're a lot more leveraged than one might expect. These people are not paying cash as long as money is near-free. They'd be total fools to pay 100% of 1 house instead of 20% on 5 houses. So consider a conventional mortgage that typically requires 20% down and you get it back when you sell, plus a profit. With these rules, they now have to pay 20%+15% to hold it, and they lose the latter portion to the government, plus significantly higher tax annually. I'd guess they're good enough at this game that they're even more leveraged than the 20% conventional downpayment requirement and probably using the (bubble inflated) equity to print new money out of thin air and get another property. I have no idea what's actually going on but this is how I've seen people speculate on real estate in other markets and seems like the obvious thing to do. I would even guess that there are ways of borrowing against money that is still in China, which subverts their restrictions on moving money. I also predict that this hiccup will be invisible within 6 months, for two reasons. 1. Nobody goes shopping for houses in December and January because it's cold and there is Christmas/Lunar New Year etc, especially with the storms this year. 2. These restrictions are going to have loopholes and a market this big has an implicit bounty on finding them. They'll figure out how to get Canadians to hold the title to dodge the 15% foreign tax and they'll sign rental agreements with their lawyers kids/pets and say it's officialy rented or whatever else they need to do.