B.C. United's housing plan includes rent-to-own initiative

British Columbia's Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon is pitching a housing plan that aims to get more first-time buyers into homes, and it comes just days after Premier David Eby promised to build more affordable rental units for the middle class.

Falcon says B.C. United's "Fix Housing" plan includes four initiatives to reduce the high cost of housing and increase supply, which he pledges to introduce if his party takes power in this fall's election.

He says he'll drop the province's property transfer tax for first-time buyers who purchase a home for less than $1 million, eliminate the provincial sales tax on new residential homes, build affordable housing on empty public land, and establish a rent-to-own program.

Falcon says the rent-to-own plan will help qualified first-time buyers who are renting a new property become homeowners through a purchase agreement, where they contribute three years of rental payments toward a down payment on the same home.

He says high down payments are a stumbling block to making a home purchase for many first-time buyers in B.C.

Housing Minister calls plan 'underwhelming'

Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon told reporters on Thursday that Falcon's plan is "a little underwhelming," and suggested that increasing the exemption for the property transfer tax could actually make the housing crisis worse.

"Encouraging people to get into the market and buy is always a good thing, but when you have limited housing, it does put pressure on the prices, and it could mean that this housing affordability crisis becomes an even bigger crisis," said Kahlon.

"What I didn't hear in that housing strategy that they brought, was the idea of investing in affordable housing," he said.

Earlier this week, Eby introduced the B.C. New Democrat government's B.C. Builds program that it says will target and help finance affordable rental developments on property owned by governments, communities and non-profits.