Vancouver Condo Real Estate Video Blog #531 - April 13, 2010
Presales and the HST Tax for New Downtown Vancouver Condos
Ian Watt video blogs about Presales and the HST Tax for New Downtown Vancouver Condos and how he believes that buying brand new construction at this point in the market is a big mistake, perhaps Main Street or Kitsilano because there aren't enough good buildings, but not in the Downtown Core. If you want to voice your opinion or if you don't care for Ian's comments please email your feedback to ianwatt@ianwatt.ca and visit http://www.ianwatt.ca/RealEstateVideos for all the Ian Watt Real Estate Video Blogs.
Ian Watt: Hi Good Afternoon, it's Ian Watt in Downtown Vancouver. Everyone's talking about the HST right now. The Harmonized Sales Tax which is 12% if I remember correctly that comes into play in July for brand new properties but from the developer. Now obviously that's going to have a huge impact on sales who's gonna pay 12% more and although there is a sliding scale. Is some people will pay a little bit less depending on the price that they are purchasing. There are some exemptions and because I'm not an accountant, I'm not gonna tell you what they are coz' I might get a wrong. But the HST is going to have an impact on all the sales from new developments. But I don't know anybody who will ethically put their clients into a new development in Downtown Vancouver these days and I feel sorry for all those people that bought in some of this new developments in the last two months not only because of the tax reasons it's just that there so much inventory in Downtown Vancouver and all this people have totally over paid as far as 1 bedrooms and 2 bedrooms are going for. You can get them 50 or 100 dollars a square foot cheaper for a comparable unit and I don't understand who's buying pre-sales this days because I just don't think it's a deal what so ever. Maybe people just wanna to lock in to something thinking the price is gonna go up. But I don't think that those prices are gonna escalate at any faster rate than any property in Downtown Vancouver. So I feel sorry for you. My name is Ian Watt and if you have any questions. You can always email me at ianwatt@ianwatt.ca. Thank you very much and have a great day!