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Yes, at one time it was estimated that roughly 1/3 of Vancouver’s condo supply was vacant. So the city implemented an empty homes tax [0] and promptly raised $1

by cgh 2y ago

Yes, at one time it was estimated that roughly 1/3 of Vancouver’s condo supply was vacant. So the city implemented an empty homes tax [0] and promptly raised $115,000,000 in tax revenue [1]. However, the tax is still far too low and it contains various loopholes that allows developers to hold condos empty for years until deep-pocketed buyers show up [2]. Vancouver isn’t unique. Housing is being traded like poker chips everywhere, often but not always by ultra-wealthy foreign nationals with zero regard for the local consequences. [0] https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-tax.aspx https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-t... [1] https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-empty-homes-tax-statistics-2021 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-empty-homes-tax-st... [2] https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/dan-fumano-some-new-vancouver-condos-held-empty-for-years-internal-city-memo https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/dan-fumano-some-new...

ZoomerCretin 2y ago
Vancouver has obscene housing prices because the city and the politically connected spend tens of thousands of hours fighting against any new housing, and any new supply. Just look at what happened when the Squamish Nation decided they were going to build high rises on the land they were given: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/14/canadian-indigeneous-nations-use-exemptions-from-zoning-rules-to-build-affordable-high-rise-housing/ https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/14/canadian-indigeneous-na... The entire city and all of the NIMBYs cried about their "neighborhood character" and tried every legal trick they could to block the development: threatening to not connect it to utilities. Vancouver literally has single family homes within half a mile of downtown! Clearly there is room for growth.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  I think a lot of people still feel burned by the property crash in the 1990s, when you saw billboards on I5 driving up offering flats for $100k in 1997.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    (Note I actually remember seeing those billboards and pointing it out to my gf at the time on how affordable Vancouver housing was, when she just spent $200k on a two bedroom in Issaquah)
- __turbobrew__ 2y ago
  British Columbia passed province wide zoning to allow quad plexes on every single family home lot, so hopefully that will help. Vancouver is full of a population which kicked out the ladder after they got theirs. We moved away a few years ago and haven’t regretted it since.
slothtrop 2y ago
The vacancy rate in Vancouver is now minimal.
dleslie 2y ago
3% vacancy tax producing $115M in revenue indicates roughly $3.8B in empty housing stock. Average condo prices in the CoV are roughly $2.1M, and so we can conclude there is likely around, or a little less than, 2000 empty condos hit by this tax. That's not 1/3 of Vancouver's condo supply. Not by a long shot.
- hedora 2y ago
  I'd guess that many of the unused condos are borderline condemned, and priced way below median. So, it's possible there are ~20,000 condos that need enough work to make repair uneconomical. Still, it doesn't sound like that'd make much of a dent in Vancouver's housing supply. (Razing them and building higher density buildings might, though.)
  - dleslie 2y ago
    IIRC, the oft-repeated and rarely-cited 1/3 vacancy is a misunderstood statistic which showed that 1/3 of condos in BC are investor-owned[0]; where an investment property is any property where the owner is not the occupant. 0: https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/02/03/bc-condos-investor-owned/ https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/02/03/bc-condos-investor-...
broken_clock 2y ago
> roughly 1/3 of Vancouver’s condo supply was vacant. Why do you choose to just tell lies?
nayuki 2y ago
> it was estimated that roughly 1/3 of Vancouver’s condo supply was vacant Did you misread something? Maybe from this post: > https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-empty-homes-tax-statistics-2021 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-empty-homes-tax-st... > Empty Homes Tax has reduced Vancouver's number of vacant homes by 36% > After five years of the EHT being in effect, the total number of vacant properties within Vancouver has fallen to 1,398 homes or 36% fewer properties compared to 2017, when the tax regime first launched. The statement about 36% is a relative percentage, not absolute percentage points. What happened is that ~2184 homes were vacant in 2017, and fell by 36% to 1398 in 2022. It's saying that of the homes that were originally vacant, there is 36% less of that now. It is not saying that of all homes that exist, the vacancy rate decreased by 36%.

by cgh 2y ago

ZoomerCretin 2y ago

Vancouver has obscene housing prices because the city and the politically connected spend tens of thousands of hours fighting against any new housing, and any new supply. Just look at what happened when the Squamish Nation decided they were going to build high rises on the land they were given: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/14/canadian-indigeneous-nations-use-exemptions-from-zoning-rules-to-build-affordable-high-rise-housing/ https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/14/canadian-indigeneous-na... The entire city and all of the NIMBYs cried about their "neighborhood character" and tried every legal trick they could to block the development: threatening to not connect it to utilities. Vancouver literally has single family homes within half a mile of downtown! Clearly there is room for growth.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
I think a lot of people still feel burned by the property crash in the 1990s, when you saw billboards on I5 driving up offering flats for $100k in 1997.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  (Note I actually remember seeing those billboards and pointing it out to my gf at the time on how affordable Vancouver housing was, when she just spent $200k on a two bedroom in Issaquah)
__turbobrew__ 2y ago
British Columbia passed province wide zoning to allow quad plexes on every single family home lot, so hopefully that will help. Vancouver is full of a population which kicked out the ladder after they got theirs. We moved away a few years ago and haven’t regretted it since.

slothtrop 2y ago

The vacancy rate in Vancouver is now minimal.

dleslie 2y ago

3% vacancy tax producing $115M in revenue indicates roughly $3.8B in empty housing stock. Average condo prices in the CoV are roughly $2.1M, and so we can conclude there is likely around, or a little less than, 2000 empty condos hit by this tax. That's not 1/3 of Vancouver's condo supply. Not by a long shot.

hedora 2y ago
I'd guess that many of the unused condos are borderline condemned, and priced way below median. So, it's possible there are ~20,000 condos that need enough work to make repair uneconomical. Still, it doesn't sound like that'd make much of a dent in Vancouver's housing supply. (Razing them and building higher density buildings might, though.)
- dleslie 2y ago
  IIRC, the oft-repeated and rarely-cited 1/3 vacancy is a misunderstood statistic which showed that 1/3 of condos in BC are investor-owned[0]; where an investment property is any property where the owner is not the occupant. 0: https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/02/03/bc-condos-investor-owned/ https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/02/03/bc-condos-investor-...

broken_clock 2y ago

> roughly 1/3 of Vancouver’s condo supply was vacant. Why do you choose to just tell lies?

nayuki 2y ago

> it was estimated that roughly 1/3 of Vancouver’s condo supply was vacant Did you misread something? Maybe from this post: > https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-empty-homes-tax-statistics-2021 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-empty-homes-tax-st... > Empty Homes Tax has reduced Vancouver's number of vacant homes by 36% > After five years of the EHT being in effect, the total number of vacant properties within Vancouver has fallen to 1,398 homes or 36% fewer properties compared to 2017, when the tax regime first launched. The statement about 36% is a relative percentage, not absolute percentage points. What happened is that ~2184 homes were vacant in 2017, and fell by 36% to 1398 in 2022. It's saying that of the homes that were originally vacant, there is 36% less of that now. It is not saying that of all homes that exist, the vacancy rate decreased by 36%.