CLICK CHARTTO ENLARGE

While we wait for the Brexit vote, here is Patrick Ceresna's hour long video explaining in detail his argument for what will trigger the Canadian real estate market selloff. My bullet points from the video are below and the chart (left) shows credit is tightening.

Are You Ready For a Canadian Real Estate Crash?
Patrick Ceresna Chief Derivative Market Strategist
​LearnToTradeGlobal.com (1 hr. 4:35 min)

Bullet Points from the Video Above

June 9, 2016: Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz cautioned that climbing real estate prices have outpaced local economic fundamentals like job creation, immigration and income growth.

June 13, 2016: Financial markets are worried about China because its debt has surged to a record 237% of gross domestic product.

Here's Why China's Economy Will Be So Hard to Fix

CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE 2008-09 FINTRAC disclosed 197 cases out of 556 involving transactions through the MSB (Money Service Business) sector.

Businesses suspected of being involved in ML/TF (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing): import/export (e.g. food, clothing, medical supplies) financial services real estate transportation, trucking, air, taxi car sales/rentals/repairs convenience stores electronics/computer sales gas stations & petroleum providers non-profit organizations

COOLING OFF THE BC REAL ESTATE MARKET
FROM THE TOP DOWN

In our real estate law practice we have seen houses steadily rise over the past seven or eight years and jump drastically since January of this year.

For example, homes in Vancouver on Connaught Drive which were selling for $3-4,000,000 a few years ago are now on the block for $10-15,000,000 (a client of mine recently turned down an offer on her home in this area at $15.8M.  The home was purchased for $6M!)

Correspondingly, homes which were $1-2,000,000 are now $4-5,000,000.
Even condominiums which were valued at a half a million dollars a last summer are now worth $800K to $1M.

Prices are rising so fast, one has to buy a property BEFORE putting one's own property up for sale, for fear of being priced out of the market!

Before the completion date occurred, another client of mine who bought a home in North Vancouver for $1.5M was offered $250,000 by the seller NOT to complete the purchase!

In my view, this lunacy is being fueled to a large extent by foreign money which is pouring into the Lower Mainland at an unprecedented rate and pulling the prices UPWARDS from the top end.

This inflow of money (Chinese principally, but there is also a lot of Iranian, Indian and American capital coming in, as there is still a very substantial discount on the Canadian dollar for those who deal in USD), is destabilizing the BC real estate market for everyone who lives and works here.

Tragically, the only people who can't seem to see this are the provincial and federal politicians and the many pundits who make a living commenting on things they t know nothing about (newspaper columnists, economists, business school profs and other so-called experts).
 
They remind me of the referees at a World Wrestling Entertainment match. Everyone in the stands is screaming that the bad guy has a concealed weapon and the only one in the building who can't see it is the referee!

However in the WWE the refs are paid to look clueless.

Our politicians are paid to govern in the interests of Canadian citizens, not foreign speculators -but looking at their behavior, one would never guess that.

While it is reported that foreign ownership may be as little as 3-5% of the housing stock that is more than enough to affect the entire market adversely -and it has done so in spades as few can now afford to own a house in Vancouver and even condominium ownership is becoming a stretch.

WHAT TO DO?
1. Make foreign buyers confirm the source of their funds
Right now any foreign buyers can wire any amount of money into  their lawyers' or notaries' trust accounts from any bank in the world to buy a property in BC with no questions asked.

Realtors and mortgage brokers are required to fill in a bunch of useless FINTRAC forms and obtain client identification documents, but NO ONE is asking where the money came from in the first place!

I have heard many stories from realtors of bidding wars where a property is listed at a certain price and then a half a dozen or more offers come in steadily bidding up the price by fifty or one hundred thousand dollar increments and then the final offer comes in at a half a million dollars over everybody else's!

A lawyer in our office recently had the same experience in BC Supreme court on a foreclosure sale.  The offer the court was asked to approve was $1.5M and a six or seven other buyers showed up at the hearing.  As is the court's practice, everyone  was advised of price of the original offer and given the opportunity to bid or re-bid in a sealed envelope.  The Master opened the sealed bids at $1,55M, $1.65M, $1.725M, $1.9M and the WINNER was $3.1M!

It would appear that the winner wanted to pay AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. 

It has been our experience that much like locals, foreign buyers usually don't want to pay a penny more than is necessary to purchase a property here (much less an extra million dollars on a foreclosure purchase).

As most foreign buyers have local realtors who are well aware of the market prices, the only explanation which seems to make any sense is that some foreign purchasers are using the Canadian real estate system to launder their money.

Once a house is purchased in BC the seller has effectively washed it and it can be moved anywhere in the world easily by selling the property (as the seller then has the contract of sale and all the documents necessary from the lawyer's office to "prove" that his funds came from the legitimate sale of Canadian real estate). No foreign country will look past the most recent transaction to confirm the legitimacy of the funds.

In the criminal world, the fee to launder money can be 50% or more.  In Canada, it seems to be NIL.

I believe that many foreign buyers when confronted with a requirement to show where their funds came front would balk and refuse to complete the purchase.

Stemming the flow of dirty money into Canadian real estate would terminate a number of high end purchases, which may push down some of the prices at the $10M - $15M range which would in turn push down the medium high end prices and so on.

2. Increase taxes significantly on those who purchase property in Canada but do not live here or pay taxes here. 
It is commonplace for foreigner investors to park some of their money in Canada (as they do not trust their own governments).  They typically put the title of a property into the names of their wives or children (it is always interesting to look at the occupation listed on the titles to high end real estate like "worker," "student" or "home maker").  The wife and kids live in the property as their principal residence and pay no taxes as they have no income.

The father, who is a non-resident, continues to make money in a foreign state at a much lower tax rate.  Canada taxes income on the basis of RESIDENCY, so the father pays NO CANADIAN TAX.  The family enjoys the benefits of the Canadian health care system, school system etc. while paying nothing other than property taxes.

The misguided view of the premier of this province is that the above situation constitutes FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN BC, to be encouraged at every step.  
With all due respect, that is nonsense.  

As the BC government is perpetually short of money for every worthwhile endeavor (hospitals, schools, pubic housing, seniors, homeless shelters, transit, mental health, child poverty -the list is endless), it would seem obvious that one source of revenue which would be virtually unopposed by BC taxpayers would be to increase Property Transfer Tax and municipal property taxes on foreign buyers who are simply taking advantage of the laxity of the current legal and regulatory framework in BC.

An appropriate rate would be perhaps 20% Property Transfer Tax and triple current property taxes for those who choose to evade paying Canadian income tax (or pay only a token amount for appearance purposes) or simply leave their BC homes vacant.
A sale of a residence so occupied (or unoccupied as the case may be) should also attract income tax on any increase in value (not capital gains tax).  

A capital gains exemption for a principal residence should also be disallowed for such owners (these two changes would of course require an amendment to the Income Tax Act which is a federal statute).

These  even for so-called "legitimate" off-shore funds would also dampen foreign demand for Canadian real estate, however to the extent that it does not, then at least there is SOME benefit flowing back to the Canadian tax system.

Are these measures discriminatory?  Absolutely!  They discriminate against foreign buyers who are simply seeking to take advantage of the Canadian real estate system, while parking or washing their funds.

These changes should apply to ANY foreign buyer of any nationality (US, Europe, Britain and Australia included).

UBC already does this with foreign students who are required to pay much higher annual tuition than local students -and no one is complaining!

Will this "fix" the real estate affordability problem?  Maybe not, but you have to start somewhere and you might as well start with the most obvious cause.

Are either of these measures likely to come to come to pass?  I would not hold my breath.
​
Generally, by the time the government gets around to doing anything of consequence "the proverbial horses are already out of the barn and the farm has been sold off to a foreign syndicate." 

Better Call Saul Explains Money Laundering

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​Did we import a Boom? As the mashup of charts of Canada & U.S. Savings Rate, Retail Sales and Household Ownership demonstrates, Canadians have gone all in on the consumption industry errr... I mean the construction industry. Well that's what housing construction is. Yes it does produce a finished product but essentially it is an assembly of imported commodities that we put together just like in our automotive "industry"(ironically, oil is near the top of the import list)​.​

"COUNTRY PRICING"
The Cost of Being Canadian
even when the CAD/USD is near par
 CBC Marketplace