Statistics Canada To Release Foreign Investor Data On Vancouver And Toronto Housing Markets.

Recently, data was released on foreign investment in the cities of Toronto and Vancouver. This was aimed at trying to reveal what is causing demand and a potential bubble in the country’s housing market. Although Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. stated that foreign investment only took about 10 per cent of sales activity. Policymakers and voters has also seized on the problem has a driving force behind precarious markets in both Toronto and Vancouver.

According to Statistics Canada’s C$39.9 million, has a five-year project to measure the market better, by using land registries and tax records, etc. This project is expected to be launched on the 19th of December along with the foreign investment data for Toronto and Vancouver, which they both accounted for up to 50 per cent of home sales by value.

David Madani, a senior economist at Capital Economics said “It’s a good thing that this is coming, but it would have been better to have it years ago. Government policy has been reactive, whether they had evidence or not to base a reaction on.”

One of the policies made by the provincial government is the 15 per cent foreign buyers’ tax levied in Toronto and Vancouver in 2016 and 2017. This was done by the provincial government to do something about the rising housing prices.

Although the tax lessen sales in Toronto and Vancouver, however demand has come creeping back.
“We assume it is foreign ownership.. increasing the price of housing, but is it true? The big questions are still there, we don’t know and until we get proper data, we are not quite sure,” an assistant director at statistics Canada Anik Lacroix said. Lacroix is the one in charge of the project.

Lacroix also hopes to find out where buyers get their down payment from, how many homes are vacant, how much prices have been rising, how demand comes from investors and so called speculators.

While most of the present data is being released by the real estate industry, the official data will help the government and regulators to control the market more efficiently.

Finally Ben Williams, the director of housing indicators and analytics at the CMHC stated that “There is no silver bullet that will answer all the questions on housing, but they are braced for high expectations as the new data starts rolling out.”