Will the Hidden Owner Registry be Effective?

(Newswire.net — August 14, 2018) Langley, BC —

 

On June 20^th, the B.C. provincial government announced legislation that would create a Hidden Owner Registry listing the individual owners of all real estate in the province. The registry is part of the NDP’s 30 point housing plan mostly intended to de-incentivize foreign speculation in the real estate market.

The NDPs claim the registry is the first of its kind in Canada and that it will have a major impact on efforts to curb tax fraud and money laundering in Metro Vancouver. However, we at ENM believe that the registry will be mostly redundant to the already-existing Land Title Registry that’s already in place. Our co-founder Daniel Greenhalgh thinks this is yet another attempt by the NDP to pay lip service to addressing the housing crisis while having little actual impact on affordability.

“The idea that foreign speculators are the primary driver of the housing crisis is a well-worn scapegoat used by politicians who want to avoid dealing with the actual problems. Of course, there are foreign investors here – I think the most reliable figure is that 2 to 4% of investments in real estate are through foreign owners. But the truth is, no one has any idea of the actual impact they’re having on affordability. We don’t have the numbers. So to lay the blame on this issue is foolish.”

We believe that the most impactful measures to address the crisis of affordability would be streamlining new development and increasing the drastic lack of housing supply in Metro Vancouver.

“If the new government is serious about tackling affordability, they need to work with industry to find ways to increase the supply of housing, especially rental housing,” says Daniel. “We at ENM have made it our primary goal to build and develop purpose-built rental housing, which is desperately needed in the Metro area. The obstacles they’re putting up to pursuing these kinds of developments are so self-defeating. The myriad new taxes that have been put in place, on top of the fees and huge delays in permit processing, are unnecessary barriers to increasing supply. We think the overall impact of NDP measures will wind up hurting affordability, not to mention hurting the number one economic driver in our province.”

The deadline for feedback on the new registry is August 19^th.  Emails can be sent to fcsp@gov.bc.ca.