Foreign home ownership levels have nudged their way up in metro Vancouver despite a tax brought in by the provincial government which adds an extra 15% to the purchase price for any overseas buyers.

The British Columbia government released data Tuesday that shows during October foreign buyers were behind 140 residential properties valued at $115 million which equated to about three per cent of the 4,700 transactions in the metro area and 3.2% of the $3.6 billion in dollar volume of deals.

The percentage of deals going to foreign buyers is still well below the peak of 13.2% of the market before the tax went into effect, but above the 1.8% in September as the full impact of the tax began to be felt.

The government first announced the measure on July 25 with it going into effect on Aug. 2, a decision that had people scrambling to close deals early to avoid the tax which adds an additional 15% on land property transfer fees for any foreign entity.

“There is a period of distortion in the market any time a tax is introduced or changed. Many transactions that would have occurred in the months following the introduction of the tax were moved to July to avoid the tax,” the province said, in a release. “As time goes on and the market readjusts, trends such as the rate and volume of foreign demand will normalize to levels we can expect to continue.”

There had been some fears that foreign money would flow into other parts of the province where the tax did not exist. The government numbers show foreign nationals were involved in 189 residential property transactions in October outside of the metro Vancouver area which represented about 2.9% of all transactions. Transactions involving foreign nationals in the rest of the province totalled $129 million.

However, in the Capital Region District which encompasses the southern tip of Vancouver Island and includes Greater Victoria, there was a larger foreign presence. About 6.3% of transactions representing 10.3% of the value of all transactions can be tracked to foreign nationals.

“Government continues to monitor this data closely,” according to the release.

In the city of Vancouver about 2.5% of October transactions involved foreign nationals, which represented about 2.8% of the dollar value of those deals. In Richmond, foreign nationals were involved in 6.7% of all residential transactions, representing 7.2% of the total value.

The government of British Columbia plans to release more detailed breakdown on property data sales on a monthly basis.

Foreign Home Buyers Trickle Back to Vancouver, but Greater Victoria Sees More Action by Garry Marr | Financial Post