Yiang (Kay) Zhou’s article about Vancouver’s foreign Home Buyer Tax discusses how the foreign tax was effective in lowering the amount of foreign buyers. However, was it effective in lowering housing prices?
Image Sourced From: http://www.fraserside.bc.ca/housing/
At the beginning of the implementation of the tax housing sales fell by 19% in August 2016 [1]; however, in July of 2017, the sales of housing increased by 0.7% [1] compared the last 10 years of housing sales. Though the Foreign Buyer Tax may have lowered the price of single homes, it did not have an impact on the sales of condos and townhouses. For example, in Metrotown, where there are predominantly condos, prices increased to $1,019,400 (8.7% increase from July 2016 [1] ). The reason for this may be because 15% tax does not have a large impact on the prices of condos or townhouses, that is why they continue to increase.
Image Sourced From: https://globalnews.ca/news/3636579/vancouver-foreign-homebuyers-tax-one-year-anniversary/
Also, the foreign buyers of houses usually have deep pockets of money, meaning that they have a lot of money to spend on housing, so even with the 15% increase it does not affect most buyers. Plus, those buyers are usually looking for a long term home since many of them have relatives already live in Vancouver. A loophole that people could follow with the tax implementation is by having relatives living in Vancouver or British Columbia they could buy the houses with their money while using the relatives’ names. There are many ways foreign buyers can still buy houses. In addition, the increasing demand of housing in Vancouver poses a problem for people already living there domestically.
Domestic citizens, such as myself, are and will have a difficult time finding affordable housing in Vancouver as it is one of the most livable cities in the world. That is why a large majority of people are moving to the suburbs where housing is cheaper. However, within the few years, the prices of housing in the suburbs are also increasing substantially. Since a lot of young families are moving to the Fraser Valley the sales price is always higher than the listing price. For examples, in Langley it is hard to find a decent house for half a million dollars [2] and housing is only on the market for a short amount of time as people quickly snag the apartment, townhouse, or house. In the past, it would have been a shock to most people if houses in Langley costed more than $500,00, but now it is rare to find a nice house in a good neighbourhood for that price [2]. 
This townhouse in Willoughby Heights in Langley sold for $30,100 over asking price.
Image Sourced From: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/real-estate-langley-to-chilliwack-still-unaffordable-1.4098428
With the increasing demand for housing in Vancouver and Fraser Valley, it is only expected for housing prices to rise. However, where does that leave the future generation, such as myself, looking for a house to buy with a medium income?
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Works Cited:
A year after the introduction of Canada’s first foreign-home buyer tax …
[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/3636579/vancouver-foreign-homebuyers-tax-one-year-anniversary/