Industry calls on government to ease up on foreign buyer ban

There was a time when the development industry and some policy makers insisted that foreign buying in B.C. was either non-existent or irrelevant.

Responding to growing public pressure and mounting evidence, nine years ago the Liberal government slapped a 15-per-cent foreign buyer tax on foreign property purchases. That was increased to 20 per cent when the NDP took over. And then, in January, 2023, the federal government put a temporary ban on foreign property purchases, extending the ban in January, 2024, for another three years.