New data from Statistics Canada show the Pender Harbour area has the Sunshine Coast’s highest percentage of homeowners from outside the country, and is one of three local communities with numbers above the provincial average.
The latest report from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program says 3.5 per cent of British Columbia’s residential properties are owned by non-residents – defined as anyone not currently living in Canada, including Canadian citizens who live overseas. The report did not look at commercial or development properties.
Outside the major cities, non-resident ownership is highest in vacation hot spots like Whistler, where non-residents own 15.5 per cent of the homes.
Statistics Canada researchers say the desire to own a prime vacation property is also a factor in Pender Harbour, which has a non-resident home ownership rate of 5.4 per cent. In Halfmoon Bay and West Howe Sound, the non-resident ownership rate is 4.2 and 4.1 per cent.
Of the municipalities on the Sunshine Coast, Gibsons has the highest percentage of non-resident owners at three per cent. Sechelt’s non-resident ownership rate is 2.5 per cent.
The other two Sunshine Coast Regional District rural areas have rates below three per cent. The rate is 2.7 per cent in Roberts Creek and 2.1 per cent in Elphinstone.
The Sunshine Coast is not included in the areas subject to either the foreign buyers or speculation tax on property, although Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons has said several times he thinks the foreign buyers tax, now at 20 per cent, should be extended to cover the Coast and much of the rest of the province.
