Metro Vancouver’s new home industry is hurting badly over the absence of any transition rules to the return of the provincial sales tax since the harmonized sales tax was defeated in a referendum Aug. 26, three property experts to The Vancouver Board of Trade Friday.
The 12 per cent HST applies to new home sales while the GST-PST regime, new home buyers only paid the five per cent GST. With no transition rules, it is uncertain what the PST will or will not apply to when it is reinstated in 2013.
The HST effect was the only real damper on Metro Vancouver real estate, which the three panelists and moderator David Podmore, CEO of Concert Properties Ltd., all said not a bubble. Podmore wore a button to the conference with the slash symbol for “no” imprinted over the word bubble.