Foreign buyers have long been investing in Toronto and Vancouver but now Quebec is beginning to come into its own as a place where international buyers want to be. The percentage of foreign investment in Quebec properties is small, only 1,307 or 1% of all property transactions, but small is better than nonexistent.
International buyers mostly purchased higher end properties in Quebec with an average price of $434,343 Canadian.
Who are these international buyers in Quebec?
- US – 32%
- French – 20%
- China – 16%
Remember that just 11 years ago, China represented just 1.3% of international buyers in Quebec. This rise to 16% is a marked contrast and likely to increase as more and more Chinese Nationals travel.
Canadian land registry data compiled by JCR Solutions Foncieres indicates that foreign buyers bought single family homes in Quebec that were two times more expensive than those bought by Quebec residents. Also, co-ownership properties bought by international buyers were 40% more expensive than properties bought by Quebecers.
Foreign investment during 2017 accounted for 1.4% of all housing transactions in Montreal. In Toronto, foreign investment in 2017 accounted for 3.2% of all property transactions and in Vancouver, foreign investment in all property transactions accounted for 3.5%.
Governments in both Toronto and Vancouver initiated a tax on foreign investors buying property as a deterrent to those investors pushing up prices for locals. Those governments did not want to see property prices escalate and become unaffordable to locals due to foreign investment. The government in Quebec is not following suit.
Said the Quebec Finance Minister, Carlos Leitao, “I don’t think we are at all in the same type of position as our neighbors in Toronto and Vancouver. When we look at average prices in the Montreal area, compared with other places in Canada, (those prices) are still relatively affordable. There is no need, in our view, to consider any sort of more intense measures.”
