Ontario Announces 16 Measures To “Cool” Housing Market
15-per-cent foreign buyer tax, expanding rent control, allowing Toronto to tax vacant homes, and using surplus lands for affordable housing. These are just some of the measures announced today by the Ontario Government aimed at cooling the housing market.
A non-resident speculation tax will be imposed on buyers from the Niagara region to Peterborough, Ont. The tax will impact those who are not citizens, permanent residents or Canadian corporations. Once legislation passes, the tax would be effective retroactively to April 21.
The average price of detached houses in the Greater Toronto Area rose to $1.21 million last month, up 33.4 per cent from a year ago. Oakville is now the most expensive area in Canada to buy a home.
What Does The Premier Say?
Premier Wynne offered the following comments: “Skyrocketing demand and rising cost of housing is the “unwanted consequence” of a growing economy, but the province’s new measures will make the process of finding a place to live a little easier, a little less frantic and a lot fairer. When young people can’t afford their own apartment or can’t imagine ever owning their own home, we know we have a problem,” she said. “And when the rising cost of housing is making more and more people insecure about their future, and about their quality of life in Ontario, we know we have to act.”
The province will also expand rent control. Previous rent control only applied to units built before November 1991. Recently tenants in newer units complained of dramatic spikes in rent. New rules would see all private rental units fall under annual rent increase guidelines. Those have averaged two per cent in the last 10 years and this year it is 1.5 per cent.
The provincial Liberal government’s housing plan contains 16 measures in total. It also includes rebating a portion of development charges to encourage rental construction under a five-year, $125-million program.
Rules for real estate agents will also be reviewed, in particular practices such as double ending, where the agent represents both the buyer and the seller.
Ontario will also establish a program to identify provincially owned surplus lands for affordable and rental housing, with an eye to using a few specific sites such as the West Don Lands in Toronto for pilot projects.