Montreal’s new mayor eyes foreign buyer tax

December 1, 2017

Montreal’s housing prices are rising so fast the mayor-elect wants to bring a foreign-homebuyer tax to slow them down.
A report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) says city housing prices will continue to climb for at least two years.
“Rising demand, combined with declining supply, will cause market conditions to tighten again and become increasingly favourable to sellers,” the report said. “Consequently, the growth in the average price of homes should be definitely higher than the annual average of the last few years, which was about 2.5 per cent.”
“The single-family home and plex markets should remain very favourable to sellers from now until 2019, which will increase the upward pressure on prices for these types of homes, while the condominium market will be on the fence between a balanced market and a sellers’ market over that period,” the report states.
CMHC expects the average price of a resale home in the Montreal region to be between $365,500 and $375,000 this year. It expects that to rise to between $379,500 and $406,000 in 2018 and to between $394,500 and $437,800 in 2019.
Mayor-elect Valérie Plante said she wants the power to impose a tax on foreign homebuyers, similar to that in Vancouver and Toronto, should the Montreal market continue to overheat. Such a tax would require provincial approval.