BUY NOW! the HST is coming!
This column in the Financial Post argues that you should BUY NOW because the HST is coming and will drive prices up.
Economist Benjamin Tal, of CIBC World Markets, predicts the tax will have an impact on housing sales. “It’s not like something you can brush under the carpet,” says Mr. Tal. “There will be reduced demand.” He predicts the industry will build more houses without all the finishings. That will leave the consumer to do work on the black market with contractors to avoid the HST. That’s what happened in the Maritimes where the HST has been in play for years, said Mr. Tal.
“This will give a boost to the under-the-table transactions. Is that an optimum thing?” says Mr. Tal.
It’s no wonder British Columbia’s housing industry is fighting the HST tooth and nail. It’s not interested in the Ontario compromise of an exemption on the first $400,000 of a home. B.C.
will provide a $20,000 tax break on the first $400,000 of a purchase, the amount being lower because the province has a 7% sales tax.
“There is no single family home here you can buy at that price,” says Peter Simpson, chief executive of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association.
Could higher taxes lead to higher demand and higher prices? If only they had the foresight to enact this policy in Las Vegas they could have prevented house prices from dropping in half!
November 29th, 2009 at 12:06 am
"Something is wrong in the country when jobs that require education pay less than whatever high school dropouts can do."
What a joke…I laugh at people like you who expect to make such big money with your 'education'. Roofer here making 160K. I have a university degree, 2 diplomas, a certified teacher, but I know where the money is. If your precious education didn't show you how to follow the money and you're here complaining about it… too damn bad. Less 'grubby dropouts' like me makes our future even brighter and yours bleaker. ROFL!
September 11th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
jesse
Re HST:
I agree with you,re; Real Estate… the HST will trickle down and affect the seller's bottom line. But these are the jaws of a vise. Everybody will then have to whip out a sharp pencil…the realtor's commissions will be cut, the tradesmen who build the projects etc.etc.
However, those now forced to pay HST on services get hit. The person how does haircuts still pays other taxes that never seem to go down(ie Triple Net), and their customers may shop around …it'll end up dog eat dog. Everybody in the food chain will lose, the underground economy will increase.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Take a Breather…:
#48 . citizens should be writing the headlines and chasing down the cockroach politicians with the intent to bring them into the full light of day. Sunshine is the best antiseptic as they say.
Writiing about fluff is disengenuous when there is so much perma- fodder for the grist of a bear it would be unseemly not to lambast the Olympic liars, fornicators, baby rapers , dictators and chiselers of the IOC for example.
Whats good about that group of killers, nazi's, thugs, frauds, theives douchebags and lickspittles while they party behind police barricades with their cheap crack whores being paid in worthless Canadian dollars while thousands are freezing and starving in the very streets that have been 'wrapped' in phony banner visions of asinine glory and barbed wire?
Whats good about sitting still and being nice to a governemnt that has lied to you and driven seniors from the hospitals and stolen opportunities from school children while having just given themselves 120% raises and bonuses?
Whats good about sitting idly by while hundreds of thousands of barely educated and semi literate citizens are misled into taking in huge personal debts which when it is generally agreed they can not pay back if interest rates rise as little as 1%.
In the same breath the government torques up its propaganda campaign and strips the dignity from millions of citizens by enslaving them in a debt trap that almost none of them have the education to understand before its too late. But they do it because they believe the government while the government has been activley coercing them to go ahead in trust and surety into a fire. Instead of saving for retirement and their childrens education they are being stripped by a pack of jackals so that they will never truly own anything, not even their dignity. A population of debt slaves, what a legacy. Joseph Stalin must be buying champagne and dancing a jig in hell at watching the vicious trickery of the Canadian government.
Take 'er easy on them, not on your life.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Realpaul, tell it like it is!
September 10th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
oh.. it's permits… so i suppose unless more infrastructure projects come up, there'll be more workers for residential construction…
September 10th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
vancouver #1. but i don't really understand if they mean in terms of permits or if it's getting cheaper…
September 10th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
HST will increase prices? Really? I think it will REDUCE prices and here's why.
The HST will increase Realtor transaction costs. In order for an investor to purchase real estate he will factor in the increased costs when he eventually has to sell. This means he will pay less to compensate for these costs in the future.
The HST also increases, or so they say, sales cost to developers. In order for developers to make money they will only purchase land at a discount to compensate for the higher transaction costs.
Both these will not increase prices but will reduce volume. Housing is unique to how it will react to increased taxes since a component of the price is in the land. Its cost can therefore immediately adjust to compensate for higher building or transaction costs. All this talk about applying basic commodity economics to real estate is grossly oversimplifying. My guess is that the government knows this, which is why they don't give two sh!ts about it.
September 10th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
BC has highest rate per capita of gangsters in the WORLD. $50 billion is Canadian dope going to US per annum. Canada is biggestt exported by far of ectasy and chrystal meth to US, Asia and Australia (wonder where in Canada these drugs are made and distributed). I am in the wrong trade; perhaps I should become a gangster to buy that place in Burnaby I've always wanted. This place is an absolute joke, the biggest narco state in the world.
September 10th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Victoria hotel chain goes bust.
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/09/03/bc-victo…