Two weeks after the province announced sweeping changes to short-term rental rules, a Victoria homeowner says he’s unintentional, collateral damage.

Zoltan Szoges’ condo building in Victoria was previously “grandfathered in” to allow short-term rentals. He wasn’t using it that way but still is being penalized.

“I just don’t support taking people’s land rights away from them when there are direct financial consequences for it when they’re not the people who did the thing that you’re trying to crack down on,” said Szoges.

Szoges lives in a Victoria building called The Janion. It was built as a hotel in 1891, and as such, prior to the new provincial rules, the building had been “grandfathered in” to allow short-term rentals.

Buyers like Szoges say they paid a premium for the buildings’ flexible land use, and the sudden limitations mean he and the other owners are facing an immediate loss in value, regardless of how they were using it.

“Now we’re leaving and we would like to recoup that premium we paid but we can’t because that usage has been taken away,” said Szoges.After two-and-a-half years of living in the micro-loft, Szoges says he and his partner have outgrown the space. Two weeks before the province announced its new short-term rental regulations, they put it up for sale.

“As soon as the bill was announced we had cancellations of showings. None of the six people who came to see our unit in the first two weeks are at all interested they’ve walked away. Every single person who was looking at our unit was looking at it for short-term investment,” said Szoges.

“So we’ve dropped our price by $50,000 and that’s not $50,000 in profit. At this point, dropping our price by that much, it would have been cheaper to remain renters two-and-a-half years ago.”


https://www.cheknews.ca/condo-owners-in-previously-designated-non-conforming-buildings-say-new-regulations-are-causing-financial-consequences-1175313/

On a Facebook post he admits that he is selling the property for more than he purchased it for, but he has to factor in "inflation".

Inflation, closing costs and transfer taxes were paid when he bought it, property taxes were paid on the assessed value, and now he has to pay realtor fees.

Just to come out clean on a $375k purchase in 2021 (I’m using an example, I don’t know what he bought it for) he’ll have to sell for around $400k, not including inflation and a few other costs. Then there could be mortgage costs, depending on his lender and their mortgage rules. I’d say anything below $415k, and he’s losing money on the deal.