Last week, Williams Family Real Estate attended The Corporate Brokerage Kick Off and listened to some of the most influential voices in the Canadian real estate industry. Overall, we felt that the most informative speakers were Benjamin Tal, who is the Deputy Chief Economist of CIBC World Markets Inc. and the CEO of The Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA), Tim Hudak.
Although both speakers cited a plethora of statistics, Tal estimates that the buyer pool has shrunk by 12% since the mortgage qualifying rules were tightened up.
Hudak made some promising suggestions during his speech, mainly that he will endeavor to fix a flawed system that makes it far too easy for people to get their real estate license, and once they have committed an offense, it’s far too difficult to revoke their license. Setting higher professional standards will undoubtedly improve the quality and integrity of realtors practicing in Ontario, which will benefit consumers.
Lastly, Ontario policy makers will no doubt be keeping an eye on how the BC real estate market responds to the NDP’s imposition of a Speculation Tax. The tax will amount to 0.5% of a property’s assessed value in 2018, plus 2% in the following years. This tax targets foreign buyers who own real estate in BC but do not pay income tax.
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