Will more taxes solve housing affordability challenges? History says no and so do we.

Re: Vancouver mayor seeks to curb housing speculation, June 4

The rising cost of homes in our region is well-documented. Metro Vancouver home prices have increased nearly 80 per cent since 2005. Detached home prices have increased over 100 per cent.

We worry about how our children can afford a home and how the most vulnerable among us can find basic shelter. These concerns have led to public debate about possible solutions.

One suggestion is for government to introduce new taxes. Some believe government should tax non-Canadian investors who buy properties. Mayor Robertson believes there should be a "luxury housing" tax on the sale of the most expensive homes in Vancouver.

We believe more taxes won’t help. Taxes bring unintended consequences. There’s little to no evidence that a luxury or foreign buyer tax would make homes more affordable.

History tells us that taxes like this fail to have the desired impact and succeed in permanently adding to government coffers.

In 1987, the provincial government implemented what was advertised as a “wealth tax”. It was supposed to apply to the sale of the most expensive five per cent of homes sold in BC. It's been 28 years since that tax was introduced and the thresholds have never been adjusted for inflation.

Today, that tax is known as the Property Transfer Tax (PTT). It’s applied to 95 per cent of all residential property sales in the province. This tax makes housing less affordable.

The home is where many people’s financial net worth resides. It's one of the last major assets that residents can sell and not pay a tax on the revenue. A little mentioned fact is that we already have tax disincentives for foreign owners. If a foreign home owner wants to sell a property in Canada, they are unable to receive a capital gains exemption.

The picture of affordability and home ownership is changing in Metro Vancouver. Our region's affordability challenges are complicated and, unfortunately, there isn't a single action that can solve them. Economists will tell you that offshore investment is a factor in today’s market. To what extent, no one has the data to know.

What we do know is that local conditions have a much more significant impact. We live in one of the most beautiful, progressive and prosperous areas of the world. There are more people who want to live here than there are homes available. This causes prices to rise.

The natural solution would be to create more supply, but we're constrained by mountains to the north, an ocean to the west, and a border to the south.

Despite the headlines, the majority of home sales in Metro Vancouver are not $1-million and beyond. Based on our Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) statistics, nearly 70 per cent of all sales in the region last year were below $800,000.

The price of condominiums today ranges between $200,000 and $600,000 depending on size and location. Townhomes range between $300,000 and $800,000 in the region.

Detached homes in the City of Vancouver are at the high-end of our market. Recent activity has pushed homes on the Vancouver Westside above $2.5 million.

It’s a different story in neighbouring communities. The benchmark price of a detached home in Maple Ridge today is $499,100; in Ladner the benchmark price is $713,200; in Coquitlam the benchmark price is $845,400.

Affordability challenges exist. But there are also more options and aspects to the story than is typically discussed in the media. Certainly more than the mayor is putting forward.

Sincerely,

J. Darcy McLeod
President of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver

2222 Paradise Avenue Coquitlam.

Virtual Tour: http://tours.total360.ca/public/vtour/display/358969 

Life is a journey. Couples buy the big house when they start their families. But when their kids fly the coop, they're stuck with a too-big house that no longer meets their needs or fits their lifestyle. The thought of starting over can be daunting.Over the years after helping scores of empty-nesters downsize, we've found that folks sometimes lose their way during this phase. Here are our top tips to help keep everyone on track:No one loves your stuff as much as you doThe first three things we tell empty-nesters to do to get their home ready for market is to de-clutter, de-clutter, de-clutter. It's amazing how many things one can accumulate over a lifetime. As we age, we also tend to hold onto things as they connect us with our past. We know firsthand. We lost our dad almost 20 years ago, and to this day, our mom still refuses to throw out any of his belongings. Unfortunately, things that we think are important to our children may not be, and things that we think are disposable may have tremendous intrinsic value to our loved ones.Here's how you can fight the urge not to purge:Hire a professionalIf you have found excuses for the last 25 years not to purge, it's unlikely that you can do this alone. Many of our clients work with professional organizers and/or estate sales companies to help them get through this process. A professional organizer can help you sort through decades of paperwork and belongings in an organized and systematic way. A professional estate sales company can help you sort through which items have value and which do not, and then sell them for you.De-clutter on the front endIf you get something new, throw something old out. One in, one out. If you have too much stuff, change the ratio. For example, if you buy a new shirt, get rid of two or three old ones.The good news is that de-cluttering is a cathartic process. While the journey of de-cluttering can be emotionally difficult, our clients routinely feel free and less burdened when they are done. In fact, the vast majority of our clients tell us that they wish they had done it years earlier.Move when you can, not when you have toDon't stay too long. It's easy to do. You've raised your family in a home, and have a lifetime of memories there. It's a growing trend for empty-nesters to modify their homes — by installing elevators and creating wide spaces to accommodate wheelchairs, for instance — to meet their needs as elderly people. Unfortunately, not every house can be adequately modified. And modifications can't erase all the unneeded space in the family home.We've seen it happen way too often — elderly homeowners start to lose the ability to maintain the house, whether for financial, physical or other age-related reasons. That's when bad things start to happen.We've had clients refuse to leave their multi-level homes, despite the advice from their doctors and often, their spouse and/or grown children. It usually takes a calamitous event — such as a tumble down a staircase, an illness or injury or financial ruin — to force the issue. By then, it's far more difficult, painful and almost always financially sub-optimal. If your loved ones are raising these issues with you, take them seriously and be honest with yourself. After a certain point, being stubborn is not just about engaging in an existential conversation with your grown children, it can be downright dangerous.Have the tough conversations while everyone is healthyNo one likes to talk about estate planning. It brings up very tough conversations and intergenerational differences and conflicts. We get it.However, it is infinitely easier to have these conversations when everyone is healthy and the conversations are more "hypothetical." Once someone is diagnosed with a terrible illness or has their health deteriorate, the last thing anyone wants to do is to talk about estate planning.Bottom line: Have meaningful conversations with your loved ones while everyone is healthy, and understand who really wants what. It's much more fun to gift things while you're alive and healthy then after you're gone. - See more at: http://www.househunting.ca/buying-homes/Downsizing+tips+empty+nesters/10868137/story.html#sthash.I9UBwgg3.dpuf

Dear Tony: We have a number of complaints about our depreciation report and our depreciation planner. The engineering company that the strata hired provided several technicians to develop our report and they were excellent to work with. That's where our satisfaction ended. The engineer who authored the final report has interpreted our bylaws and imposed a number of recommendations that we did not ask for that have now unfairly raised a number of unsubstantiated claims about our building, and incorrectly interpreted our bylaws. The company is refusing to correct the report and now we are not sure how to address this.

- See more at: http://www.househunting.ca/theprovince/Condo+Smarts+Problems+arise+from+incorrect+report/11071208/story.html#sthash.I6onXEyg.dpuf