Foreign ownership data just ‘tip of the iceberg’
Further study may look at homes owned by B.C. shell companies, students and other family members
Dan Fumano
The Province
Recent data released by Statistics Canada only looked at non-resident property ownership in Vancouver and Toronto. NICK PROCAYLO
Last week’s government data release, which was the most comprehensive study to date of foreign ownership of Canadian real estate, was just “the tip of the iceberg,” says the director of Statistics Canada’s new housing program.
The new year will bring the release of more data providing a deeper, broader, and “much more nuanced” look into Canadian property ownership, said Haig McCarrell, director of the Statistics Canada division overseeing the Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP).
Last Tuesday marked the first release from the CHSP, an initiative supported by both StatsCan and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The release made local, national, and international headlines, with the Wall Street Journal reporting the study’s initial findings “garnered global attention.”
But there’s much more to come, said McCarrell, reached by phone in Ottawa.
As Postmedia reported last week, among other noteworthy findings, CHSP’s initial release showed that in pricey markets like Vancouver and Richmond, one in five of the most recently built condos is owned by non-residents.
But some experts stated the true proportion of foreign-owned properties could be higher. McCarrell said StatsCan hopes future research will illuminate more details about certain kinds of property ownership arrangements.
For example, a property owned by a B.C.-incorporated shell company with foreign owners would, for the purposes of this month’s release, count as Canadian-owned, McCarrell said. Eventually, StatsCan wants to determine how much Canadian real estate is owned by “resident corporations with foreign owners.”
Another area where McCarrell hopes to shed light is overseas residents buying Canadian properties in the name of spouses or children.
If a foreigner buys a Canadian home with money generated overseas, and puts the property in the name of a child attending school in Canada, it would not count as foreign-owned in this initial StatsCan study. McCarrell said future CHSP research could compare tax filings and property title records to find, for example, certain neighbourhoods with disproportionate numbers of multi-million properties owned by “students” with no declared income.
“We want to look at the use of the property,” he said. “Is this property for owner accommodation? Is it for rental? Is it for investment purposes? Or is it for recreation?”
For the initial study, StatsCan and CMHC defined “non-resident homeowner” (often expressed as “foreign owner”) as someone whose principal residence is outside of Canada, regardless of citizenship.
The first release examined non-resident property ownership in the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Toronto, regions that have seen contentious debates about the role of offshore money in increasingly unaffordable housing markets.
But future research may broaden the scope to include other B.C. markets such as Kelowna and Victoria, McCarrell said.
“We can’t do everything right away, it’s going to take us some time. This is a really big undertaking,” he said. “And I think you’re seeing the tip of the iceberg right now, quite frankly.”
“A lot of great information’s going to be coming,” McCarrell said, saying the next release is expected in spring 2018. “So stay tuned.”
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