One Toronto brokerage owner is calling for foreign buyer regulation, despite some blowback from his own brokers.
Carl Langschmidt, president of Condos.ca, recently penned a blog entitled Foreign Investor Tax and Regulation Please! – a polite, yet assertive call to action.
In the piece, Langschmidt argues foreign ownership stats are much higher than the CMHC’s estimate of 2.3% of sales in Toronto. He went so far as to call that figure “laughable.”
“Our talks with sales reps in the trenches indicate it is much higher; some reported as high as 70% foreign ownership at developments like CityPlace,” Langschmidt wrote.
Anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But how about this other piece of sobering hearsay?
“Personally, this week alone, one of the agents in my brokerage who was meant to be listing a 50 unit condo building was just informed today the developer sold the entire building to a Chinese consortium and that we’re not getting any of the listings,” Langschmidt told Canadian Real Estate Wealth. “That’s how hot the market is.”
Vancouver had success with its own foreign real estate regulation when it implemented a 15% sales tax. That helped contribute to double-digit cooling in what was once Canada’s hottest market.
And Toronto may soon have its own measures introduced, with Ontario’s budget expected in the coming weeks. Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa said the budget will contain policy aimed at addressing housing affordability.
"Demand is high for a number of factors," he said, per the Canadian Press. "Could be speculators, could be people from outside the country, it could very well be the many who are now moving into Ontario creating that demand."
While many have argued in favour of a similar approach in Toronto, Langschmidt suggests a multipronged strategy that could also include special regulations for prebuild home sales.
“Preconstruction sales has morphed into a totally separate specialization in real estate; it’s almost as if agents who specialize in that are so different from traditional real estate where you’re showing properties,” he said. “Preconstruction sales is all about pitching investors and often agents and groups go overseas to pitch. I’ve seen their presentations. I cringe at their presentations. It induces the speculation; half of them use numbers are (off). A lot of them don’t calculate ROIs correctly. This is where I think some regulation is required.
“Anyone selling a stock or investment vehicle, there’s regulations in the securities business about what you can say. Whereas with (real estate sales) it’s the wild west.”
Many believe foreign ownership is having a major impact on Toronto home prices and will likely applaud Langschmidt’s comments. However, that may not include a portion of real estate agents, his own included.
“The reason why I’m saying it is I don’t mind saying what I think is true,” Langschmidt said. “It will upset people who deal with foreign investors; even in my own brokerage I had someone call me up and say ‘we have a lot of foreign investors and they’re not going to be happy with our opinion on us.’”
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