WARMINGTON: Brad Bradford's land transfer tax cut plan throws home-ownership dreamers a lifeline
· Toronto Sun
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It is the most consequential political pledge in Toronto municipal politics in the past 20 years.
If it happens, it could give young people, single or with families, their first opportunity to get what Toronto should offer but no longer does – a chance to own their own home.
Mayoral candidate Brad Bradford’s campaign promise to eliminate the municipal land transfer tax on purchases of a home up to $ 1.1 million is not only potentially a lifeline for people stuck in the cycle or renting at enormous cost, it actually could save the city from its current housing industry and real estate transaction stagnation.
Not since mayor Rob Ford eliminated the equally tax-grabbing $60 car city registration tax in 2011 has Toronto seen a potential tax-cut winner like this. This initiative will help first-time home or condo buyers but also help people move up to their next property, as the tax savings will apply to the first $ 1.1 million – meaning if a home is $ 2.1 million or more, they would not have to pay a fee for the first part of it.
Plan could take $18,000 off cost of home purchase
“It means (up to) $18,000 savings right back in your wallet,” Bradford told the Toronto Sun.
And it could be the catalyst to help Toronto move the thousands of vacant or unsold condos, allow for new projects to be built, create opportunities for families to get into entry-level homes, and breathe some life into what has been a moribund market in recent years.
In 2008, Toronto – under Mayor David Miller and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty – brought in the second land transfer tax to go with the provincial one already in place. It’s done on a percentage scale and usually works out to 2% of the cost of a housing transaction as well as a registration fee.
If he wins the Oct. 26 mayoral election, Bradford said for individuals – not companies, investors or banks who hold multiple properties – it will offer a chance to get into the market.
“It’s perfect for seniors as well who may want to downsize,” he said.
This was met with negativity by sitting Mayor Olivia Chow, who has herself pitched a $5.6 million plan to help seniors.
“Councillor Bradford will say anything during election time, and finding those multi-million dollars of funding means that service has to be cut,” Chow told reporters. “I will not slash public services people rely on. I am focusing on making life more affordable, and certainly making life so much more healthier and connected for seniors and living well. That’s my focus.”
Her response shows Bradford’s proposal did cause a ripple in the campaign. Unlike her $28-million plan to go into curbing youth violence, this was more street-level handing out of money directly to people trying to invest in themselves and the city. In essence, it’s taking collected money from the bureaucracy and putting it into the hands of working people – something small government capitalists like and big-government socialists fear.
In her three years as mayor, not only did Chow’s council raise the annual property tax fee by 18.6%, but councillors also gave themselves a 24% raise in 2025 to the tune of a $33,000 annual increase while wasting millions on a half dozen World Cup soccer games and many other financial failures.
Bradford wants Toronto to reach ‘full potential’
The current City Council takes care of themselves very well. So when someone on council talks about taking care of the taxpayers with a real tax-cutting measure to take care of the voters, it’s worth a look for those who are not swimming in cash like the current crop are.
Bradford said he would use the new strong powers of the mayor to make it happen, and I believe him since he comes from a place of understanding what it’s like to buy a home and raise a family in Toronto – something he is doing.
“I want Toronto to be a city that reaches its full potential,” said Bradford. “When people look out their window and see drug use, crime, millions of food bank trips, unsafe streets and over taxation, it is not reaching its full potential.”
It will be interesting to see how the dropping of the second land transfer tax for purchases, and other announcements, will poll for Bradford. Pollsters currently have Chow ahead by between six and 17 points.
Candidates and partisans only like polls when they are in their favour, but how online surveying of about 500 people represents how things really are is a headscratcher.
But these polls get reported as such.
No other news story would run based on a news release and data from anonymous people, or named people who take personal digs at candidates, which means a narrative can be set amongst the voters on which way the wind is blowing based on a small sample people and not the whole electorate.
Bradford said he’s not feeling what the polls are showing in his day-to-day campaigning.
“What I sense is there is a mood for change,” he said.
War on home buying as bad as war on car
There are still three weeks until vote day, so time will tell if people like the idea of lowering the cost of buying a home or condo, or whether things have swung so far in favour of the socialism-style economy that the concept of owning your own abode has become out of reach and a thing of the past.
Like the war on the car, the war on people not being able to comfortably buy real estate and instead pay exorbitant rent is not working for many. Cutting a rapacious, unnecessary tax could help the average person get in on the so-called Canadian dream of owning their own home.
Chow’s approach is good for those who like social-program politics and use the affordability word, whereas Bradford’s plan to eliminate a tax and slow down the cost of utilities is a more tangible method that perhaps could take money from the fat cats in City Hall and share it with the taxpayers they work for and who pay the freight.
“Chow is campaigning on the status quo in that what you have got is good enough,” said Bradford.
Bradford said he wants to give some of that money back to taxpayers so they can invest in the city and themselves, and get their little piece of Toronto’s full potential.