Foreign buyer ban changes could spur preconstruction demand
“The resolution to our housing issues isn’t going to come from short-term measures that temporarily move the needle,” he said. “It’s a long-term belief that we need more housing.”
Trade war takes government’s main focus away from housing
While the foreign homebuyer ban extension and adjustment drew headlines, housing was far from the main focus of the budget – particularly with the US-Canada trade war rumbling on and the federal government still taking steps to deepen Canadian trading relationships away from the US.
Strengthening the economic outlook and in turn building up consumer confidence are important, Fox noted, more so than potential measures to help more Canadians into homes in the immediate future.
“Whatever those short-term measures might be addressing isn’t really addressing the bigger picture, which is the broader economic uncertainty that’s being driven by south of the border,” he said.
Prime minister Mark Carney’s efforts to diversify Canada’s trade dependence beyond the US are, in Fox’s view, a strategy that will pay off over time, even if the impact isn’t immediately apparent.
