The possibility of the tax has been raised as Ontario's finance minister is set to meet today with his federal counterpart and the Toronto mayor to discuss housing affordability in the GTA.
Meanwhile, the cost of a detached home in Toronto roared to a new record high of nearly $1.6 million in March, a 33 per cent climb over prices a year ago, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB).
Like many others, Altbaum is calling for either a foreign buyers tax - like the one imposed in Vancouver in August - or a change to capital gains taxes to discourage investors from flipping properties. He and his neighbors in South Bayview are sitting on enormous real estate gold mines. "We're serious today and we're serious over the long term of ensuring that we have the data to get to policy responses that will ensure we can keep this market stable". The Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) said it's disappointed and concerned with the proposed changes because they were made "without formal consultation" with the industry responsible for rental housing. The governor of the Bank of Canada has also said that the rate of increase in house prices in the GTA suggests the demand is being driven more by speculators than "just folks that are buying a house".
"Because housing market balance varies by location, federal or provincial policy measures aimed at cooling demand in Toronto risk destabilizing housing markets elsewhere", CREA chief economist Gregory Klump said in a statement.
The question of foreign buyers has been especially controversial of late, as many critics have blamed them for speculation in the housing market, but often without hard data to back up those contentions.
Premier Kathleen Wynne announced the new speculation tax on Thursday as part of a series of measures to help stabilise the price for property and for rental units in and around Toronto.
Toronto home prices increased 29 percent from a year earlier.
The HPI benchmark price measures the value of a typical home in a given housing market, taking into account things such as lot size, age, and number of rooms.
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But it said that had failed to happen, and that evidence of irregularities had therefore not been properly archived. But many "No" voters saw the referendum as a power-hungry leader's attempt to cement his position.
A sizable real estate correction in a market with as much weight as Toronto could affect people's expectations well beyond the city limits, he added.
Housing Minister Chris Ballard was the first to tell CBC Toronto about new rent controls in mid-March, saying at the time that the government was working on legislation that would expand "on the rent controls that are now in place".
British Columbia brought in a similar tax for Vancouver in 2016.
As of Monday, the province will require homebuyers to provide information about who they are, and how they intend to use the property, according to a new post on a provincial government webpage.
- A review of the rules real estate agents are required to follow to ensure that consumers are fairly represented in real estate transactions.
Toronto's surging real estate market has triggered debate over whether non-Canadian speculators are bidding up homes and fuelling unsustainable record price gains, or if a lack of housing supply and inadequate urban planning is more to blame.
Ontario's government will also work with municipalities to identify provincially owned surplus land that could be used for affordable and rental housing development.
New taxes might slow price growth but there will still be growth.
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