Vancouver’s foreign buyer tax may harm tech industry

The battle to recruit tech workers to Vancouver is nothing new: while the city’s livability and proximity to San Francisco is an attraction, the high cost of living and owning a home is a major drawback.

“When they’re excited about the product, they’re excited about the team, they’re excited about even their compensation, but they take a look at their cost of living, it’s something that definitely becomes an inhibitor for them,” says Dennis Pilarinos, the CEO of Buddybuild.

READ MORE: Vancouver tries to snag talent with impact jobs

One of the aims of the new 15 per cent tax on foreign home buyers in Vancouver is to slow down the increase in home prices across the region. But for immigrants currently being recruited to B.C. tech jobs, it’s a tough pill to swallow.

“If I’d known this, we would’ve gone somewhere else,” computer scientist Eric Kong told Bloomberg this week.

Recruited to Vancouver for a job, he’s currently moving his family to Vancouver and looking for a home. The new tax will set him back an additional $114,000 he was looking at, he says – and cancelling the move would mean breaking a deposit.

At least in the short-term, it seems many companies are willing to accept the additional tax as the cost of doing business in an overheated market.

READ MORE: Metro Vancouver home sales dropped 75% after foreign buyer tax announced, says realtor

“I don’t think we’re that different from a New York or San Francisco…or some of the other larger hubs in the world. Vancouver is at point where you have to compare it to those, that’s just the reality,” says Vision Critical founder and president Andrew Reid.

“You have to focus on making sure you’ve got a very successful business people want to be part of…and get the right compensation package that’s competitive and in line with at least where other industry norms are.”