Introduced in 2018, the speculation tax requires local homeowners with a vacant residence to pay 0.5% of the property’s assessed value, and could jump as high as 2% for foreign homeowners. The move was a province-led initiative to push homes back into the rental supply.

It’s currently enacted in most municipalities in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, Kelowna, Nanaimo and the District of Lantzville. If homes are still left vacant, the revenue from the tax is used to ease the affordability crisis by improving housing access and supply in the same regions.

It’s a win-win situation for British Columbia, which said the tax would only target 1% of these homeowners, with foreign homeowners making up a significant portion of taxpayers.

Read more: Vancouver approves hike to empty homes tax

From that 1% of the British Columbian population, the BC government reported that the speculation tax managed to bring in 18,000 new condominium units into the rental market from 2018 to 2020.