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Canada’s housing agency, looking for new methods to track foreign ownership in the country’s soaring real estate markets, may tap money laundering police and classify international university students as foreign buyers, according to internal documents.

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The West Coast’s retirees are cashing out as an influx of foreign demand pushes up housing prices in Vancouver inflating real estate prices in B.C.’s once-sleepy retirement enclaves.





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Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp., the crown corporation that backstops mortgages and tracks new housing data, has been in contact with at least eight government agencies to find data on offshore buyers in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal as prices continue to soar, according to 486 pages of e-mails, briefing notes, and other documents Bloomberg News obtained through a freedom of information request.

“At this time, no existing tool can provide a definitive measure of the level of foreign investment in Canada’s housing markets,” Karine LeBlanc, an agency spokeswoman, said in an e-mail Friday. “That said, CMHC regularly engages in discussions internally, as well as with industry experts, as part of its continued efforts to develop a program of work that would better capture data on foreign buyers.”