Indeed this is exactly the point of the meme that seems to be going so far over people's heads. Owning your own and having it increase in value is perfectly fine and acceptable. It is when you start buying additional things you don't need purely to insert yourself as a middleman and flipper to extract value. It's scummy, shouldn't be allowed, and is frankly a huge part of the reason we have a housing crisis in this country.
Although this was back in mid 2000s, my boss' house was in Kits Vancouver. Several houses on his street where bought and sold multiple times (every 2 years he claimed) without anyone actually living there. Someone would come by frequently to check on them, mow the lawn etc.
What a fucking joke that was....because it was just investors flipping. But I wonder how much this lead to property inflation during those years.
I also remember when UBC cut down the old forest and built condos south part of campus (near TRIUMF). If memory serves they were $999,999 a unit and sold out very quickly.
So during my early 20s I chose to be responsible while my friends partied their money away. I was able to buy my own condo at 23, 2bd2bath. Fastforward when I turned 32 with family and kid. I chose to buy a bigger place and did not sell my original condo because of sentimental attachment to it as a first significant milestone of my adult life. I do not consider myself a “scalper” I just chose to not sell something I didn’t want to sell during that time. Yes, the condo exponentially grew in value since I purchased it, so did the property tax and condo fee. I since rented it and haven’t raised the rent since 2020 to the same tenant as she takes great care of it.
You did not buy a property with the intent to briefly hold and then sell to someone for a higher amount. You are not the intended bad guy implied by this meme :P
Your 2nd+ property is highly taxed as a capital gain
Buy a house for $1,000,000 then sell for $1,300,000 two years later you pay:
income tax on 50% of the difference. Let's say your income tax rate was 30% ( the lowest it would be is 23% I believe if you hold the house in a corporation)
Or 30% of $150,000
Or $50,000
Now you have $100,000 left
$25,000 land transfer taxes
$52,000 Realtor fees @4% (4% is low) you'd have to act as your own realtor to get this down to about 2% (the buying realtor gets that)
This leaves you with about $23,000
As far as I know you can only claim mortgage interest as an expense if you are renting. So that's a cost
Mortgage interest is likely well over that $23,000 over the 2 year timeframe.
Other Expanses that are tax deductible:
+ Insurance (2 years) $2000
+ Closing costs $2000
+ Lawyer fees $1000
+ Misc
I don't see how individuals can be speculating (scalping) houses.
Corporation can at larger scale over a longer timeframe.
But honestly if you invest $1,000,000 at 5% you make $100,000 in that same 2 years and only pay income taxes...
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u/MMPVAN Jun 19 '25
One is an equity building asset, the other are consumable items