Updated August 2026: this post covered the tax change as breaking news back in January. The rate increase is now seven months old and fully in effect, so the framing below has been corrected and updated with current market data.
BC raised the Speculation and Vacancy Tax again on January 1, 2026. Most people reading this already know that, especially anyone actually paying it.
Foreign owners and satellite families (the province calls this group “untaxed worldwide earners”) are now at 3%, up from 2%.
Canadian citizens and permanent residents, including those who earn most of their income outside BC, are now at 1%, up from 0.5%. There is no separate lower rate for BC-based residents; the 1% rate applies to all Canadian citizens and permanent residents who aren’t classified as untaxed worldwide earners.
None of that is surprising. What is worth paying attention to is what the policy continues to reward and what it makes increasingly uncomfortable.
Holding land and doing nothing costs more every year.
Turning land into housing supply remains exempt, under the “land under development” exemption the province lists for the Speculation and Vacancy Tax.
That incentive gap keeps widening.
Exemptions depend on your specific property, ownership structure, and construction timeline. Confirm your situation against the province’s rules, or with a BC tax accountant, before assuming a project qualifies.
The Rental Math That Stopped Working
At the same time, the rental side of the market keeps confirming something developers have known for a while.
CMHC’s mid-2026 data puts Metro Vancouver’s rental vacancy rate at 3.7%, the highest level since the late 1980s. Rents are down roughly 6% year over year as of mid-2026, marking the 30th straight month of annual declines, though the pace of decline has slowed from the double-digit drops seen earlier.
But build-to-rent multiplex in the GVRD has been a hard case from the start. Under current rents and costs, these projects are very hard to finance. Very hard to underwrite conservatively. Many experienced builders have stepped back from them.
What has changed over time is that the build-to-rent math continues to move the wrong way for anyone still hoping rent growth will eventually bail out marginal projects.
Build-to-rent assumptions keep getting worse.
Build-to-sell still works, if you’re selective.
That distinction matters more now than ever.
The 100,000 Lot Illusion
Over a hundred thousand lots across Metro Vancouver are zoned for multiplex. Everyone knows that. What’s less obvious until you’re deep in the numbers is how quickly that pool collapses once you apply real constraints:
- Frontage
- Massing
- DCL and DCC fees
- Utility servicing
- Construction costs
- Exit pricing
- Time
Most sites don’t pencil.
Some barely pencil.
A small number produce outsized returns.
That’s not a policy debate. That’s an everyday underwriting reality, the kind you can stress-test yourself with a detailed proforma before committing to a site.
Headlines vs. Structure
Right now, a lot of private capital is reacting to headlines instead of structure.
Rates. Days on market. Tariffs. Cost to build. Elections. Sentiment.
None of that tells you whether a specific property can absorb risk and still produce safe return on equity.
That’s what PlexRank was built to screen for.
Not to predict the market.
Not to guarantee returns.
It scores sites against the underwriting constraints above, so your diligence time goes to the strongest candidates instead of the whole pile. It narrows the list. The deal work is still yours.
When you begin with site-level screening, compressed cycles, and a defined exit, you’re not relying on optimism or the news. You’re working inside known constraints.
The Real Bottleneck
The bottleneck today isn’t zoning.
It isn’t demand.
It isn’t even construction.
It’s coordination.
Getting the right sites, the right capital, and the right execution aligned at the same moment is still the hard part. That’s where deals stall, not because multiplex doesn’t work, but because alignment doesn’t.
That’s where my focus is this year: clean math, better partners, and turning zoning into finished buildings instead of conversations.
David Babakaiff Co-Founder, VanPlex
Weekly notes on multiplex, capital, and what actually moves in Vancouver.
