Subject Matter of the Lobbying Activity
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Specific Topics of Lobbying Communications
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Intended Outcomes
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Associated Subject Matters
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BCREA recommends the provincial government take the following actions:
1. Consult with real estate sector stakeholders and homeowners before requiring energy
assessments on existing homes.
Realtors and other stakeholders can provide on-the-ground expertise on how to implement
energy assessments in ways that will increase their efficacy and fairness.
Realtors should not be required to provide energy labelling information, because they are
not the property owners. Realtors facilitate transactions, rather than participate in them.
The current proposal in the Minister of Finance’s mandate letter poses several challenges:
• only homes listed for sale on Multiple Listing Service® systems would be impacted,
• to avoid the requirement, sellers may choose not to work with Realtors,
• if on-site assessments are required and there is a shortage of energy advisors,
especially in rural or remote communities, there could be a significant delay in listing
homes. This could result in added costs, which could be passed on to buyers.
Adequate consultation with stakeholders can further increase effectiveness when
understanding which homes should be exempt from energy labelling requirements. Some
exemptions to be considered include new homes, which may already have energy labels
and will be required to have higher minimum Energy Step Code standards under the 2022
BC Building Code. Other exemptions to be considered include properties that are marketed
for redevelopment and situations where owners must sell homes at short notice or due to
financial difficulties.
2. Ensure that an energy assessment tool is available to owners of all existing homes.
Energy labelling support should be made available for all homeowners, not just at the time
of listing. BCREA understands that the BC Government is in the early stages of developing a
remote energy evaluation tool to be used by homeowners. We are unclear whether this tool
would be available to assess all homes or only those about to be listed on MLS® Systems.
We support the implementation of an energy assessment tool that would examine energy,
GHG emissions and cost implications of design and retrofit options for most building
models within the National Building Code of Canada. The tool will allow users to see
different costs and changes to utilities that could result from renovations.
Making a low-cost, easy-to-use energy assessment tool available to all owners of existing homes
could result in a larger transformation of the existing housing stock.
3. Coordinate an energy assessment tool with other programs.
To increase accessibility and uptake of a new energy assessment tool, link it with other
tools and incentive programs to support homebuyers and homeowners. Specifically, we
recommend coordinating with the following programs:
• current CleanBC retrofit incentives,
• local government programs and incentives,
• private sector programs and incentives, such as those provided by financial institutions,
utilities and equipment providers,
• EnerGuide for Homes. Coordinating with Natural Resources Canada to look for
commonalities between a provincial tool for existing homes and the federal EnerGuide
for Homes, which is used for new homes, will allow for consumers to make
comparisons.
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- Development of any legislative proposal by the government of British Columbia, a Provincial entity or a member of the Legislative Assembly
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Non-Profit Organization
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Improving Housing Supply
Opportunity
Government support for homebuyers helps British Columbians access the most appropriate
housing for their needs. The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA), BC’s ten real
estate boards and more than 23,000 REALTORS® look forward to continued collaboration with
the BC Government to increase housing options and supply for residents that are not
needlessly delayed. While this will not solve housing affordability challenges in a day, it will
help to better match supply with demand over the long term.
Background
Affordability is an issue in many BC housing markets, causing hardships for a growing number
of residents. Housing affordability constrains economic opportunities and causes dreams of
home ownership to become increasingly difficult to achieve, especially for first-time buyers and
lower-income families. Home prices are out of reach for many households and rental supply is
inadequate to accommodate demand.
Since 2012, BC average housing prices have risen by 52 per cent. Growth in home prices is a
function of many factors, influenced by both demand and supply. For the period of 1982-2020,
the BCREA economics department found that the most important economic variables that
affect home prices are housing demand (24 per cent), mortgage rates (22 per cent), price
expectations (18 per cent) and supply (16 per cent), which collectively explain 80 per cent of the
variance in home prices during the period.
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There is no silver-bullet solution to stabilize housing prices. While demand is a very important
driver of prices, it is largely influenced by a strong labour market and healthy population
growth and should be encouraged by policy choices rather than limited by them. For example,
immigration is the most important driver of population growth in BC, and also affects housing
demand. While the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a sharp temporary drop in immigration, the
federal government aims to welcome about 401,000 immigrants across the country in 2021.
Many of those people will settle in BC, contributing to BC’s economy and culture, and they will
also add to existing demand for housing
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- Development of any legislative proposal by the government of British Columbia, a Provincial entity or a member of the Legislative Assembly
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Non-Profit Organization
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