Foreign buyer ban was expected to impact 2% of home purchases, CMHC docs show
Canada’s ban on non-residents buying property was only expected to affect around two per cent of home purchases each year, according to discussions within the national housing agency ahead of its implementation.
Global News obtained 340 pages of internal communications at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) from the first three months of the year. The foreign buyer ban was first instituted on Jan. 1, 2023, and subsequently amended within weeks of its implementation.
Passed in June 2022, the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act bars non-citizens, non-permanent residents and foreign-controlled companies from buying properties in Canada for two years.
Originally there were exceptions for international students and temporary residents, with additional exemptions carved out in March.
The emails and briefing materials prepared by CMHC bureaucrats show an effort to prepare public servants for “tough questions” about the policy, which was pitched as a way to improve affordability.
Experts who spoke to Global News say the Liberal government policy has been ineffective at best and a “nuisance” at worst.
Among the discussions about preparing a section of the CMHC website to explain who’s impacted by the ban, one staffer at the Crown corporation asked how much traffic the landing page should expect.
In response, another staffer says that the CMHC estimates around two per cent of real estate purchases in 2021 were by non-Canadians. Of the 670,000 transactions in that year, the CMHC pegs the total number of affected purchases at just over 13,000.
Tom Davidoff, associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, tells Global News that the CMHC’s internal
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