Why not just have occupancy requirements / vacancy tax?
Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
11–20 of 817 posts
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#12I’m mostly familiar with Vancouver since my wife has relatives there. About half a dozen years ago they imposed a 15% tax on foreign real estate investors. I heard 2015 figures suggesting foreign Chinese investors accounted for one third of the $29 billion market in 2015. Vancouver real estate prices had been rising a lot for a long time but I think they felt the foreign investors exacerbated the problem for locals, especially since a lot of investors would just buy homes and no one would live in them.
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#13This is nothing but pandering for votes before an election for those who don't understand this won't have any significant impact on affordability of houses for Canadians. There's a reason why we still also pay the highest telecommunications bills in the world - industrial complexes have captured our government, and even it's far worse that that; regulatory capture. Edit to add: 3 points down to 0 points; downvotes ar…
We just had a Federal election though? :/
Unless you are referring to this toothless promise made prior to the election in question, and now they're happy to follow that as it won't actually change anything.
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#14This is nothing but pandering for votes before an election for those who don't understand this won't have any significant impact on affordability of houses for Canadians. There's a reason why we still also pay the highest telecommunications bills in the world - industrial complexes have captured our government, and even it's far worse that that; regulatory capture. Edit to add: 3 points down to 0 points; downvotes ar…
I was shocked and alarmed at the cellphone bills when I moved to the US from a third world country, and then my classmate who had moved to Canada sent me his bill...
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#15I don’t know the specifics on Canadian real estate market and the specifics of the problems there, but based on my understanding of the problems facing your neighbors to the south - I feel like it’s almost an attempt to appease citizens by blaming the issue on “foreigners” (always a move that is popular with politicians) to redirect attention from the much more likely cause - massive investments made by hedge funds,…
> I feel like it’s almost an attempt to appease citizens by blaming the issue on “foreigners” (always a move that is popular with politicians)
Yeah the Right loves to blame poor foreigners while the Left prefers to blame rich foreigners but at the end of the day they at least agree that it is never the voters themselves who are to blame.
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#16No post body was provided.
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#17I’m mostly familiar with Vancouver since my wife has relatives there. About half a dozen years ago they imposed a 15% tax on foreign real estate investors. I heard 2015 figures suggesting foreign Chinese investors accounted for one third of the $29 billion market in 2015. Vancouver real estate prices had been rising a lot for a long time but I think they felt the foreign investors exacerbated the problem for locals,…
There's pretty tight rules about leaving properties empty. Daily fines in the thousands.
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#18The Canadian economy is almost entirely dependent on real estate[0][1]. It's almost a certainty that the Liberal government would never hurt that sector in any meaningful way. I'm guessing that they're run the numbers and they know this won't have any real effect (other than political points scoring). Most of the RE demand comes from immigration (in CA, currently more than 1%/year) - look at any country that has high…
It's fine for demand to go up as long as supply can keep up -- which unfortunately hasn't for decades thanks to NIMBYs
https://financialpost.com/news/economy/ontario-alberta-and-m...
https://www.livabl.com/2021/05/canada-housing-market-most-un...
Look at any satellite or aerial view of Vancouver or Toronto and it's basically all SFH
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/twj89s/yonge_st_fr...
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#19Are foreigners responsible for house price increases? Is it companies? Is it locals?
Who make up the buyers? Is there a breakdown? Ie foreign companies?
I would also like to know for Australia too.
Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes
#20Liberal governments will do everything but the one thing that will solve the problem: make it much, much easier to actually build more housing. Everything else is just pointless busywork.