Will This Election Fix Vancouver’s Housing Market?

Last August, a judge in a BC courtroom ruled on a stretch of land in Richmond. Farms, a golf course, port land, some private property. And that one ruling has become one of the biggest talking points in this provincial election.

Here’s the strange part. That ruling wasn’t based on DRIPA.

Hold onto that, because it matters. In eight days, British Columbia picks a government. Advance voting opened today. And a lot of buyers, sellers and investors in this city are asking the same thing: will the result finally get this market moving, or make it worse?

Let’s actually work through it.

A MARKET HOLDING ITS BREATH

Quick recap of where we are. Home sales in Metro Vancouver are running about a quarter below normal. Prices have been drifting down for months. Inventory is well above average. Buyers have more leverage than they’ve had in years, and most of them still aren’t using it.

Now drop a snap election into the middle of that.

Premier David Eby called it on September 22, and voting day is October 24. The polls are tight. Ipsos has the Conservatives up five. Research Co. has them up two. And in Metro Vancouver, where the seats that decide this thing are, it’s basically a coin flip.

So if you’re sitting on a decision about a house or a condo, you’ve got a perfectly good excuse to wait two more weeks.

But here’s the question nobody’s asking out loud: if you wait, what exactly are you hoping the result changes? To answer that, we need to look at what each side is actually promising, and what the province can and can’t control.

WHAT THE PROVINCE ACTUALLY CONTROLS

Let’s be honest about something first. The biggest forces on Vancouver home prices aren’t in Victoria.

Interest rates? That’s the Bank of Canada. Immigration levels, which drive a lot of the demand here? That’s Ottawa. Global money flows, the trade fight with the U.S.? Nobody in the BC legislature controls those.

What the province does control is real, though. Property-related taxes. How fast projects get approved. Rules for builders. And, maybe most importantly, the mood. Whether people with money feel like this is a stable place to put it.

And mood is exactly what’s been missing.

So let’s look at the two big parties through that lens. Starting with the government.

THE NDP CASE

If the NDP wins, the big housing promises include a new tax on unsold condos and raising the existing speculation and vacancy tax.

Now, think back to the last video. The weakest part of this market right now is condos. Investor-owned units finishing construction, not selling, piling up.

So the NDP’s argument goes like this: if empty units cost more to hold, developers and investors have a reason to cut prices or rent them out. That means more homes actually being lived in, and maybe better deals for first-time buyers.

Critics see the same tax very differently. Developers are already struggling to get new projects financed. Add a cost for units that don’t sell, and some of those future buildings just never get started. Fewer cranes today means tighter supply in five years.

Both of those can be true at once. A tax like this could help buyers in the short run and hurt supply in the long run. Which one wins depends on how it’s designed.

There’s also a quieter point in the NDP’s favour, at least from a market perspective: continuity. Everyone already knows the rules under this government. Some investors hate those rules, but nobody’s guessing.

And that brings us to the party promising to change a lot of them.

THE CONSERVATIVE CASE

Lorne Doerkson’s Conservatives are running on the message that British Columbians are overtaxed. They’re promising a $1,000 annual income tax cut by raising the tax-free amount, and they’ve hammered the NDP over things like freezing tax brackets and the planned PST expansion.

And Doerkson has been blunt about DRIPA. He’s said flat out he will repeal it.

The argument for why that would help housing goes like this. Investors and businesses have been nervous for a while. A government that says “lower taxes, faster approvals, clear rules” could bring some of that money back. More confidence, more building, more buyers off the sidelines.

There’s polling behind the frustration, too. In May, Angus Reid found about half of British Columbians thought the economy would be worse off with DRIPA in place, and close to half supported repealing it.

But there are real questions here as well. The province is projecting a deficit of about $13.8 billion, so a lot of people will want to know how tax cuts get paid for. And repealing DRIPA would almost certainly face fierce opposition from many First Nations, which some argue could trade one kind of uncertainty for another, at least for a while.

Which brings us back to that Richmond courtroom.

THE TWIST NOBODY’S EXPLAINING

The ruling I mentioned at the top is the Cowichan Tribes case. A BC Supreme Court judge found the Cowichan hold Aboriginal title to roughly 732 acres in south and east Richmond.

That sent a shockwave through the real estate world, because the court said private fee simple ownership didn’t wipe out that title. Richmond’s mayor wrote to property owners warning their ownership could be affected. Some homeowners have even appealed their property assessments.

So naturally, a lot of people connected that fear to DRIPA.

But here’s the thing. Aboriginal title comes from the Constitution and decades of Supreme Court of Canada rulings. Not from DRIPA. Even the Conservatives’ own Indigenous relations critic has said repealing DRIPA doesn’t roll back constitutionally protected rights.

So if you’re a buyer who’s worried about Cowichan-style title claims, repealing DRIPA wouldn’t make that ruling disappear. What will matter is the courts. The province, the City of Richmond and the Musqueam are all appealing. And there’s already one signal worth knowing: in a separate case, New Brunswick’s Court of Appeal said Aboriginal title can’t be declared over private land unless the owners were part of the case, and the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal of that this spring.

So the DRIPA debate is real, and it matters for how government makes decisions about land and projects. But it’s not the same thing as the title question that’s actually rattling homeowners. Most political ads won’t tell you that.

Okay. So with all that on the table, let’s play out both outcomes.

THE MUSQUEAM DEAL AND THE “SECRET DEALS” QUESTION

But Cowichan isn’t the only thing making people nervous. There’s another story, and it’s closer to home for anyone in Vancouver.

Back in February, the federal government signed a set of agreements with the Musqueam Indian Band. One of them gives general recognition that the Musqueam have Aboriginal rights and title within their traditional territory.

And that territory isn’t some remote valley. It includes Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby and parts of Delta. More than a million people live there.

So you can imagine how that landed, especially just months after Cowichan.

Here’s where the “secret deal” accusation comes from. The agreements weren’t made public right away. Critics, including the Conservatives, said Ottawa negotiated behind closed doors and asked people to trust the result. Some pointed out that one related agreement, reportedly tied to revenue from the Vancouver airport lease, still hasn’t been released.

And provincially? When Premier Eby was asked about it, he said his government hadn’t been briefed and hadn’t seen the text. One prominent political columnist argued the NDP’s story about what it knew, and when, didn’t fully add up.

So is there a real transparency problem here? A lot of people think so, and that’s a fair debate.

But now let’s look at what the deal actually says, because this is where the online version and the documents split apart.

Ottawa says the Musqueam agreement doesn’t affect privately owned land. It says it isn’t a treaty and isn’t a land claim. What it does is set up a framework for future negotiations over how and where those rights could apply. Critics answer that “future negotiations” is exactly what worries them, because nobody knows where those talks end up.

Then there’s the bigger fear you’ve probably seen in comments and group chats: that “land back” means handing over the whole province.

Here’s the actual number. This year, the province’s own financial statements disclosed its land transfer commitments to First Nations. The total? An area of Crown land about twelve times the size of the City of Vancouver.

That sounds huge. And for the communities and industries near that land, it matters. But BC is enormous. Twelve Vancouvers is well under one percent of the province. And it’s Crown land, not people’s backyards.

Now, that doesn’t mean the concern is fake. The Conservatives have called for stopping further transfers and repealing DRIPA. Supporters of these agreements argue they bring certainty, settle claims that would otherwise end up in court, and unlock projects. Both of those arguments will be on the ballot.

But for a buyer looking at a condo in Burnaby or a house in East Van, the honest answer is this: nothing in these agreements, as written, touches your title today. What could affect property owners down the road is the courts and future negotiations. And that’s true no matter who’s premier.

Which is exactly why this election matters less than people think, and more than people think, at the same time.

So who should you trust to handle all of this? That’s the question in front of voters. Let’s play out both outcomes.

TWO SCENARIOS

If the NDP wins: Probably no big jolt either way. The market’s already priced in this government. You might see condo developers getting more aggressive with discounts if the unsold-unit tax goes ahead, which could be good news for buyers. Investors who were hoping for change might stay on the sidelines longer.

If the Conservatives win: There could be a short-term mood boost, especially among investors and business owners who’ve been vocal about wanting change. But a mood boost isn’t a policy. Repealing laws, rewriting tax rules, speeding up approvals — all of that takes months or years. And Doerkson is the party’s interim leader, so there are open questions about what a leadership review would mean after a win.

And there’s a third possibility people forget: a minority. With races this close, nobody might get a clear mandate. That’s the one outcome that could actually add uncertainty instead of removing it.

So which result helps the market? Honestly, the market’s bigger problem might not be who wins. It might be the waiting.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU

If you’re a buyer, here’s the uncomfortable math. Right now you have negotiating power. If the election result makes people more confident, whichever way it goes, some of that power could fade as buyers come back. The leverage you have today exists precisely because people are nervous.

If you’re a seller, don’t expect a ballot box to rescue your 2022 price. Even in the most optimistic scenario, policy changes take time to show up in the market.

And if you’re an investor, look past the slogans. Read the actual tax proposals. Follow the court appeals. Those will tell you more about the next five years than any campaign rally.

So, back to where we started. A ruling about land in Richmond became a fight about DRIPA. And a slow housing market became a fight about who’s to blame.

Both sides have a real argument. The NDP says it’s going after empty homes and speculation. The Conservatives say lower taxes and fewer rules will bring confidence back. Voters get to decide which story they believe on October 24.

But the market doesn’t vote. It just reacts. And what it reacts to most is certainty.

So here’s what I want to know. Is the election actually changing your plans, or is it just a reason to wait? Tell me in the comments. And if you’re eligible, go vote. Advance polls are open through October 21.