A vacant-homes tax may boost housing availability but it hasn’t improved affordability, says a new study on the policy’s impact in Vancouver.
However, researchers said that while the tax effectively reduced the number of empty homes, it did not affect average rent or the number of new dwellings being built, suggesting “a need for further measures to address the wider housing crisis.”
The study noted that many cities and countries have recently adopted similar policies to tackle the housing crisis by adding taxes on empty homes. France was the first to introduce a vacancy tax in 1999. The United Kingdom followed with a similar policy in 2015, and both Spain’s Catalonia province and the city of Jerusalem implemented their own vacancy taxes that same year.
The study also mentioned criticisms of the empty-homes tax, including that some believe it might make property developers and investors less likely to start new projects because the extra costs of holding empty properties could lower their profits. Other criticisms include that the tax is a form of government overreach, telling private property owners what they can and cannot do with their properties.
“The current housing crisis is a complex issue, and only when we act on a comprehensive suite of policies will we tackle it promptly and effectively,” the researchers said.