I find it really strange to find this on HN's aggregator. This tax is neither novel, technical, nor an actual solution. There are cities that have solved the speculation problem with social housing and/or planning - Vancouver (and San Fran's) only problem is a lack of will.

I just bought a 450K house in Victoria knowing I'll take a haircut. The problem with timing the market is it simply hasn't crashed and I'm out of time - it's time to start a family.

You didn't need to purchase a house to do that. You can rent houses in victoria. Buying a house doesn't mean you'll keep it if economic bad times hit.

450K for a house seems cheap. In the GTA, you won't even get a townhouse for that much. A townhome (with monthly fees) probably goes for over 650K :'( I don't understand it.