The executive vice president and co-founder of Empire Communities says he isn’t convinced foreign buyers are contributing to the high cost of Toronto real estate.

In an interview with BNN, Paul Golini said land constraints are a much bigger issue in the market than the level of foreign ownership.

“We really think that there isn’t a problem here,” he said. “We think the numbers don’t justify the fact that we’re on this witch hunt.”

Empire Communities is a Toronto-based home building company that constructs condos and houses in southern Ontario.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has consulted Golini, along with other home builders, real estate boards and realtors, hoping they can shed some light on how to gather data on foreign ownership in Canada’s real estate markets.

“There are mechanisms to collect data, but how reliable that data is, is the question,” he said. “We do collect information, especially on the new home side. We’re getting your information on where you live in terms of your driver’s license, your SIN number.”

A new report from the CMHC estimates about 1 in 10 new downtown Toronto condominiums built in the past five years is owned by foreigners, but Golini suspects the number to be much lower than that.

“It seems a little bit high, you know we met just recently with some other industry folks and everyone reported a number that was closer to 5%,” Golini said.

“Those 5-7% foreign buyers, we don’t think it’s a bad thing. We’re trying to attract people to Toronto and to Canada for the many reasons. We all sort of celebrate why we’re a great country.”