Canucks pull off comeback, top Predators 4-3 in OT
Elias Lindholm scored 1:02 into overtime and the Vancouver Canucks came all the way back to beat the Nashville Predators 4-3 in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series on Sunday.
As Canada announces a two-year ban on foreign homebuyers, real estate experts offered mixed reactions when discussing the impacts on the market.
On Thursday, Canada’s federal budget included several measures with the goal of cooling Canada’s red-hot housing market, including $4 billion to help municipalities with planning and delivery of housing projects, and a $1.5 billion commitment over two years for as many as 6,000 new affordable housing units. Additionally, among the announcements is a two-year ban on foreign home purchases, though there are several exceptions, including students and refugees, among others.
“I think we've seen this before in 2017,” Nicola St. John, with Bosley Real Estate in Ontario, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. “I think it did have an impact then, and my sense is it'll probably have an impact now.”
St. John is referring to the Ontario provincial government’s 15 per cent tax on foreign homebuyers purchasing property in the province’s Golden Horseshoe. Ontario has since expanded the tax to 20 per cent across the province.
It’s this tax, and a similar levy in British Columbia, that leads Elan Weintraub, co-founder of Mortgage Outlet, to wonder how effective the federal ban will be at all. He argues that middle-class families will still have no chance of getting into the housing market without drastic changes.
“I don't think that this will help first-time buyers, and I don't think it helps Canadians get into a home,” he said.
“A lot of the measures and a lot of the plans, it's really a red herring. It doesn't accomplish much. I think the government needs to be much more clear on what their goals are in terms of housing.”
St. John said foreign home buying isn’t a huge issue in Canada, but it can make it hard for Canadians to purchase a home, because foreign buyers can sometimes offer significantly more than the other bidders.
“A lot of times the highest offer will come from a foreign buyer, so if that's taken out of the equation, I think that is going to affect the prices,” she said. “I think still there will be a lot of people offering, but I think that definitely it's going to curtail some of some of the spending.”
For privacy reasons, St. John couldn’t provide an estimate on how many purchases she’s seen that go to foreign buyers, but said the number is “not insignificant.”
Instead of a ban on foreign homebuyers,Weintraub suggests strict levies on all real estate investors, regardless of citizenship.
“The big one is homeowners versus investors, does the government not care that someone owned eight properties and someone else is struggling to buy one, their first property?” he said. “I think that really that’s the philosophical idea that they need to articulate and then execute against.”
Both St. John and Weintraub believe that the real issue in Canada is supply, and the promises the government has made to expand housing projects will help cool the market, provided they actually are completed.
“It’s fantastic, absolutely,” St. John said. “Let's have more homes. Let's have more possibilities for people.”
St. John also suggested further increased interest rates and a ban on blind bidding -- where perspective homebuyers are unaware of how much other bidders are offering -- would also help cool the market. A ban on blind bidding was among the promises the Liberals made in advance of the 2021 election.
___
What do you want to know about the budget? Email dotcom@bellmedia.ca.
Elias Lindholm scored 1:02 into overtime and the Vancouver Canucks came all the way back to beat the Nashville Predators 4-3 in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series on Sunday.
Three women diagnosed with HIV after getting 'vampire facial' procedures at an unlicensed medical spa are believed to be the first documented cases of people contracting the virus through a cosmetic procedure using needles.
All 79 locations of pharmacy and retail chain London Drugs were shut down Sunday after it was the victim of a “cybersecurity incident.”
One person was killed in a six-vehicle crash on Highway 400 in Innisfil Friday evening.
Aerial photos posted by Chinese state media on Sunday showed wide devastation in part of the southern city of Guangzhou after a tornado swept through the day before, killing five people, injuring dozens others and damaging more than 140 buildings.
Ontario is introducing a suite of measures that will crack down on cellphone use and vaping in schools.
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday described domestic violence as a 'national crisis' after thousands rallied around the country against violence toward women.
Rookie goalie Arturs Silovs will start in net for the Vancouver Canucks when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series Sunday.
U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.