Premier doubts source of documents detailing $57 million in student-owned property
Posted September 18, 2016 1:51 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
PORT COQUITLAM (NEWS 1130) – News that nine students own $57 million worth of property in Vancouver’s Point Grey neighbourhood provided a stark snapshot of the Metro Vancouver housing market this week.
The information came from land title documents uncovered by the BC New Democrats and presented by housing critic David Eby.
When NEWS 1130 asked Christy Clark for comment today in Port Coquitlam, the premier questioned the source of the information.
“I don’t know if the facts are correct,” Clark says, “but that’s one of the reasons I brought in a 15 per cent tax for foreign buyers.”
Despite being listed as students, the nine homeowners purportedly qualified for mortgages worth $40 million. Eby also claims that one of the students flipped a property in Point Grey for a $1.15 million profit.
Eby’s wider point was that foreign investors play by a different set to rules than Canadians when it comes to real estate. But Clark says her government is trying to level the playing field, pointing again to the 15 percent tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver.
“It’s a little early, but we certainly saw that that has had an impact in these August statistics,” she says, “there’s a lot more we need to do, but this was a really impactful, I think, a really good first step.”
