If the goal of a vacant-homes tax is to improve housing affordability, it doesn't work. But if its goal is to improve housing availability, it does. That's the conclusion of a new C.D. Howe Institute report called "Ripple Effects: The Impact of an Empty-Homes Tax on Canada's Housing Market". The authors used Vancouver's 2017 empty-homes tax as a case study for implementing the tax across the country.
Michael Hainsworth speaks with Gherardo Caracciolo, one of the authors of the report, about the study and what it tells us about improving availability and affordability in the Canadian residential real-estate market.
