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The city of Vancouver says the number of Vancouver properties declared vacant in 2018 has gone down 15 per cent from 2017.

And, in a news release Wednesday, the city says just over half of the homes that were declared vacant last year are now occupied are in the rental market.

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“The year-over-year numbers are very encouraging,” Mayor Kennedy Stewart said in the release.

The figures show 922 properties were listed as vacant last year, compared with 1,085 in 2017, the first year of the initiative. Of the 163 properties reclassified as occupied, the city says more than half of those are listed as rentals with tenants.

Stewart says the main objective of Vancouver’s empty homes tax, which is not be confused with the provincial speculation and vacancy tax, is to influence property owners to put their empty properties on the rental market.

Vancouver council has asked staff to look at a possible increase to the empty homes tax.

The city says as of the Feb. 4 declaration deadline, 922 properties were declared vacant in 2018, compared to 1,085 declared vacant by last year’s extended deadline of March 5, 2018.

Of those properties now declared occupied, the city says just over half (53 per cent) changed to being tenanted.

Properties that were declared vacant or deemed vacant by the city will be issued a bill for one per cent of the property’s 2018 assessed taxable value.

The payments are due by April 12.

ticrawford@postmedia.com

With a file from CP