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Foreign buyers accounted for six per cent of the value of residential property purchased in B.C. over the past year, according to the latest data released Wednesday by B.C.’s Ministry of Finance.

The figures show the government took in $102 million in revenue from the foreign buyer tax from Aug. 2, 2016 to March 31, 2017, figures released Wednesday show.

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The government started collecting foreign buyer data in June 2016, and abruptly introduced a 15-per-cent tax on the purchase of residential real estate in Metro Vancouver in August 2016.

Despite the tax, the majority of B.C. foreign buyer transactions from June 2016 through May 2017 — $3.27 billion worth — happened in Metro Vancouver.

However, a detailed accounting of how much foreign money is actually invested in B.C. homes is not possible due to obscure ownership structures, critics and industry experts said.

The share of sales volume involving foreign buyers plunged from 16.5 per cent in Metro Vancouver in June 2016 to four per cent in January 2017.



In Richmond, 27.2 per cent of total sales involved foreign buyers in June 2016. The figure plunged to 1.3 per cent in August 2016 and bounced back to about 10 per cent per month through most of 2017. From June 2016 to May 2017, the cumulative value of all property purchases in Richmond involving offshore buyers was 12.6 per cent, about $610 million.



But that is only for the offshore buyers the government knows about, NDP MLA David Eby said.



Eby said a 2016 Transparency International study showed 50 per cent of the top 100 most expensive properties in the City of Vancouver are owned through obscure methods such as offshore trusts, shell companies, or students or housewives represented on land titles. The prevalence of these ownership methods in Vancouver suggests the government can’t detect many offshore buyers in luxury markets across B.C., Eby said.



A number of real estate industry experts said buyers have found creative ways around the foreign buyer tax.



Last August, while sales crashed across Metro Vancouver, Langley realtor Danny Evans predicted to Postmedia a swift bounce back in “under the table” sales from offshore buyers arranged through “side deals for the people that are going on the title (as owners).”