The Effect of a Vacant Homes Tax on Housing Affordability
The City of Vancouver is the first jurisdiction in North America to implement a vacant homes tax to address concerns about housing affordability. This graduate fellow presentation examines the impact of this tax on housing vacancy and foreign home ownership, using a synthetic control method. The findings indicate that the tax led to a reduction in the vacancy rate and foreign home ownership, effectively addressing its primary objectives. In contrast, the tax’s effect on rents and housing prices is less clear.
Speaker:
Eun Ji (Lindsay) Lee is the recipient of the 2025–2026 IMFG Blanche and Sandy Van Ginkel Graduate Fellowship from the Institute of Municipal Finance and Governance. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Economics at the University of Toronto. Her primary research interests are in labour and urban economics, with a focus on urban housing and labour markets, residential segregation and sorting, and housing affordability. Lindsay holds both a Bachelor of Arts (BA) and a Master of Arts (MA) in economics from York University.