{"id":5040,"date":"2022-04-13T11:23:48","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T14:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=5040"},"modified":"2022-04-13T11:25:33","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T14:25:33","slug":"local-realtor-says-non-resident-tax-will-alienate-community-not-solve-housing-crunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2022\/04\/13\/local-realtor-says-non-resident-tax-will-alienate-community-not-solve-housing-crunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Local realtor says non-resident tax will alienate community, not solve housing crunch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

COVID-19 has spurred home sales in Queens. Photo: Ed Halverson<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

New taxes targeting non-resident homeowners won\u2019t address the affordable housing issue according to a local realtor.<\/p>\n

Measures announced in last week\u2019s provincial budget will impose a five percent deed transfer tax on the sale price of a home and a provincial tax of $2 per $100 of a home\u2019s assessed value for anyone from outside the province purchasing a house in Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n

Kristopher Snarby, managing associate broker with Exit Interlake Realty says everyone knows a lack of available housing has caused prices in the purchase and rental markets to soar but taxing buyers from outside the province won\u2019t solve the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese new rules are only applying to people who don\u2019t live here full time,\u201d said Snarby. \u201cFor example, for me in the past year, I\u2019ve dealt with a lot of Ontario buyers and Western Canadian buyers but they\u2019re all moving here full time so nothing\u2019s going to change on that front.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kristopher Snarby, managing associate broker EXIT Interlake<\/span>
Realty in Liverpool\/Bridgewater. Photo submitted by Kristopher Snarby<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Another issue Snarby sees is the homes that would be subject to the tax aren\u2019t generally in the price range for first-time homebuyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the bread and butter. It\u2019s not the $100,000 homes or the $200,000 homes. Probably a lot of them are oceanfront, lakefront, really high-end homes that are in the half million to a million-dollar range, and in Halifax even more, maybe. So, that\u2019s the other part of the puzzle is that it\u2019s not really the houses that the general public can afford.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snarby says many of the non-resident homeowners have come to the area year after year, supporting local businesses and services and have become part of the fabric of the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fear is we\u2019re upsetting a lot of people who have contributed a lot to the province over the years and kind of slamming the door in their face saying, hey, you\u2019re not welcome here anymore,\u201d said Snarby.<\/p>\n

Province says measuring effect of taxes will take years<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Finance Minister Allan MacMaster says taxing non-residents will make more housing available in Nova Scotia because it attacks the problem on a couple of fronts.<\/p>\n

First, the tax will raise money that government can put into affordable housing and second, it should cool demand for houses from buyers outside the province.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an inexact science. I will not come on and make claims that this will solve everything, these taxes will solve everything. But we do believe that they will have some impact and over the next two years we\u2019ll be building a database,\u201d said MacMaster. \u201cWe\u2019ll know just how much we\u2019ll be raising in terms of revenue, and we\u2019ll know just how much of an impact these taxes will have on the housing market and whether or not they do, in fact, increase supply for Nova Scotians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite announcing the taxes to tackle the housing crisis, MacMaster says money collected won\u2019t be set aside, instead, it will go into the provincial government\u2019s general revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t collected a cent of these taxes to date, but we\u2019ve already spent money last fall. We ear-marked $35 million for affordable housing, we added another $15 million in the budget that was introduced a week or so ago,\u201d said MacMaster. \u201cWe\u2019re taking in money and there\u2019s money going out the door all the time and practically speaking, sometimes it\u2019s difficult to just say, okay, we\u2019re going to use these funds for a certain purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacMaster says government will continue to look for ways to help Nova Scotians into homes but is definite on one thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more housing. Whether it\u2019s government purchased and managed housing, whether it\u2019s co-operative housing or whether it\u2019s private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacMaster acknowledges building up the housing stock will take time and in the interim, government will make more rent supplements available to get people into rental units that may be outside their budget.<\/p>\n

The new tax measures went into effect April 1.<\/p>\n

E-mail:\u00a0edhalversonnews@gmail.com<\/a><\/strong>
\nTwitter: @edwardhalverson<\/strong><\/p>\n

To listen to the broadcast of this story, press play below.<\/em><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Non-Resident-tax-Apr-12-22-ver-2_mixdown.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New taxes targeting non-resident homeowners won\u2019t address the affordable housing issue according to a local realtor. Measures announced in last week\u2019s provincial budget will impose a five percent deed transfer tax on the sale price of a home and a provincial tax of $2 per $100 of a home\u2019s assessed value for anyone from outside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[360,656,617,188,657,186,675],"class_list":["post-5040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-affordable-housing","tag-allan-macmaster","tag-deed-transfer-tax","tag-kristopher-snarby","tag-non-resident-tax","tag-real-estate","tag-rent-supplements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5040"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5045,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions\/5045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}