The BC Real Estate Association submitted a five-pillar approach to address housing affordability for renters and homeowners across the province on Wednesday.
CEO, Robert Laing says one of the proposed changes involves raising the Property Transfer Tax.
“We’re asking that the government increase the 2% threshold to $525,000 from the current $200,000 and for the north the average price for a home is around $270,000 so many homebuyers will benefit just in tax savings.”
Another one of the pillars was to densify urban areas across the province.
Laing says there is a simple reason for this.
“What happens when you spread out your building as opposed to densifying your building you get areas that all of a sudden are not as desirable, that doesn’t help anyone. Our goal is whatever type of housing a person wants is available to them at the price that is reasonable for them.”
The BCREA is also asking the government to index all of the thresholds to ensure the tax reflects the market, preventing it from getting out of hand when house prices go up during a boom.
If elected on May 9th, the BC Green Party also have a plan for the Property Transfer Tax.
Their plan is to enhance the nature of the PTT by introducing a sliding scale of 0% on the first $200,000 of a property’s value up to 12% on properties worth more than $3 million dollars.
Another popular topic will be in the spotlight once again according to Laing.
“We want to focus a lot on rental housing since it’s very difficult to get purposeful rental housing anywhere in the province. We think the government should again encourage developers to really create purposeful rental housing.”
The BC NDP have also introduced a 10-year Action Plan for Housing Affordability where they would build 114,000 rental, non-profit, co-op and owner purchase housing units through partnerships over ten years.
A refundable renter’s rebate of $400 dollars per rental household in BC each year has also been put on the table by the Orange Party.
We'll take immediate action to make life more affordable, leaving more money in your pocket at the end of each month. #BetterBC #bcelxn17
— BC NDP (@bcndp) April 13, 2017
The BC Liberals, on the other hand, made the largest ever one-year investment of $920 million to create close to 5,300 new units of affordable rental housing according to their 2017 housing platform.
According to the Liberals, approximately 24,000 new units of affordable housing were created during their time in office.
This is the second housing affordability plan that has been issued this month.
The BC Rental Housing Coalition says $1.8 billion dollars a year for the next decade will be the average amount needed to get the province’s rental market back to affordability.