The exception to this law meaning you can buy property if you are a foreigner is if a) you are a Canadian permanent resident, b) you are a study permit holder, c) you are a work permit holder, d) you are a diplomat or e) you are purchasing property in so-called cottage country, which is not yet defined.



If you are a temporary worker and want to purchase residential property, you must produce three years of tax returns.

That’s quite onerous. 

That means if you are a foreign worker coming to Canada you will need to wait three years to buy a residential property.

How many workers will this affect in 2023? 600,000.  Next year about 700,000. Projecting even further perhaps 800,000. That means over 3 million workers, moving forward 3 years, plus 2022 and 2021, will not be able to purchase property because they will not have three years of tax returns.



It’s totally unreasonable to make coveted international workers wait that long and yet study permit holders, typically young students, through their parents, can buy properties in Toronto or Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, etc.

Solution: Policymakers need to rethink this legislation. They need to temper down the qualifications for temporary workers to qualify to purchase residential properties, because for companies who relocate to Canada, their executives will have to rent for years, at very high prices. 

All of this will place more strain on the rental property market, which will surely harm many more millions of Canadians.

We need to temper down this legislation by requiring much less onerous proof of real intention to come and work in Canada. This will probably strike a better balance of the intended goal of reducing property price increases for the purchase market while shielding all residential property renters from having to face such rapid price increases in their rental costs.

How do you feel about this legislation and our proposed solution? We’d like to hear your thoughts and comments.