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Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#121

Post by AzzieElbab »

boplicity wrote: post #88

> During last year’s election campaign, Trudeau’s party also proposed a ban on “blind bidding” for houses -- the prevailing system by which offers are kept secret when someone is auctioning a home. This is such a huge deal. Anyone who has had to go through the process of buying a home through a bidding war knows how unfair and one-sided this process is. It take a high-pressure emotional situation, and gives all of th…

I think people are missing the fact that for many Canadians values of their homes represent their live savings. So while homeownership remains high in Canada doing something substantial about re prices would ruin peoples lives.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#122

Post by jmyeet »

Good.

The way countries allow the ultra-wealthy to park money in real estate and pay almost no taxes on it while it drives up the price of a necessary resource for everyone else has to stop. Period.

In an ideal world, this wouldn't be a ban per se. I'd prefer to see that owning a property anyywhere allows that jurisdiction to tax your worldwide income and assets of the beneficial owner as if they were a resident.

Double taxation treatires exist and can handle that case.

New York City (as one example) should be for New Yorkers, not Russian oligarchs, nonresident billionaires and corrupt heads of state.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#123

Post by DaedPsyker »

nly wrote: post #98
paulgb wrote: post #86

> Freeland will introduce legislation that allows Canadians under the age of 40 to save as much as C$40,000 ($31,900) for a home downpayment within a new tax-exempt vehicle, the person said. I'm not an economist but this seems pretty dumb? To the extent that it helps someone afford a home that they can save tax-free for it, the same is true of some of the people they're bidding against, driving up the price they ulti…

We have a similar scheme in the UK, where you can save £4000/yr and get a 25% top-up from the government if you use the pot to buy your first home. Everything invested in this scheme is tax free: income and growth. You're completely right, it just drives up prices further... but they're vote winning policies and using these pots makes conveyencers a nice profit.

You can't open a help to buy ISA any longer, the government honours existing accounts though.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#124

Post by closeparen »

paulgb wrote: post #86

> Freeland will introduce legislation that allows Canadians under the age of 40 to save as much as C$40,000 ($31,900) for a home downpayment within a new tax-exempt vehicle, the person said. I'm not an economist but this seems pretty dumb? To the extent that it helps someone afford a home that they can save tax-free for it, the same is true of some of the people they're bidding against, driving up the price they ulti…

It is not actually possible to increase the supply of good suburbia. The virtue of a suburban home is to be on a large plot of land with low-intensity neighbors and convenient vehicle access to places, and this genuinely can’t scale very far. Even if you have infinitely much land, you will never build enough roads or lanes.

We can increase the supply of other things which are also called “housing” but are fundamentally different products, and not what most people in North America are talking about when they talk about wanting to buy or own homes.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#125

Post by loceng »

eudoxus wrote: post #13
loceng wrote: post #8

This 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.

Only 20% of Canadians voted for Trudeau, and the majority of Canadians are being misled by our mass media channels - CBC which got $1.2 billion of government funding last year, and they are now being rewarded with an additional $100 million per year for the next 4 years.

E.g. our electoral system is designed to be unfairly balanced towards the duopoly, so we've been stuck in a cycle of voting for the lesser of two evils - instead of who we actually want to vote for.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#126

Post by ethbr0 »

sonicggg wrote: post #115
boplicity wrote: post #88

> During last year’s election campaign, Trudeau’s party also proposed a ban on “blind bidding” for houses -- the prevailing system by which offers are kept secret when someone is auctioning a home. This is such a huge deal. Anyone who has had to go through the process of buying a home through a bidding war knows how unfair and one-sided this process is. It take a high-pressure emotional situation, and gives all of th…

I live in Canada, and the real estate business is such a mafia. They are leeches, and I'm not sure how much value these real estate agents are providing. It baffles me how this industry has not yet been disrupted by an outsider, like Uber did with taxis. I still remember when taxi licenses costed a fortune, and you had the exact same leeches exploiting it. They were seen as an investment in some cities, like NYC. I k…

In the case of real estate, the entrenched transaction businesses control both supply and demand, and hence are more able to block new entrants.

In the case of Uber, supply (people who own vehicles) was effectively unlimited and independent.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#127

Post by balaji1 »

Spivak wrote: post #29
tqi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Weird, I know the left likes to blame the rich, but I’ve never seen specifically rich foreigners. Also for real how can the voters (ie the average citizen) be the problem? The average citizen has no money and no political or regulatory power. The average citizen just exists in a system they have no control over and responds to incentives. Hoping that en mass people won’t do that is like politely asking a river to mov…

it is a good observation, I think you mean most immigrants are not rich. If you didn't mean immigrants, immigrants are not rich until 10+ years later. Definitely don't spend like the rich. But they are willing to commit years to buy into real-estate.

> The foreign-buyer ban won’t apply to students, foreign workers or foreign citizens who are permanent residents of Canada, the person said.

The article says some of those foreigners will be exempt. I will say this, the country needs the immigrants' money (ie spend in that country, on top of taxes paid)

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#128

Post by slg »

richbell wrote: post #101
boplicity wrote: post #88

> During last year’s election campaign, Trudeau’s party also proposed a ban on “blind bidding” for houses -- the prevailing system by which offers are kept secret when someone is auctioning a home. This is such a huge deal. Anyone who has had to go through the process of buying a home through a bidding war knows how unfair and one-sided this process is. It take a high-pressure emotional situation, and gives all of th…

I think that blind bidding is a bit of a scape-goat here: the problem isn't that the bidding process is blind per se, it's the complete lack of transparency. Once a house is sold, the price that it sold for AND all bids should be made a matter of public record — accessible without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money to view. Not to mention the ridiculous commission fees for realtors, and their well-known pract…

>I think that blind bidding is a bit of a scape-goat here:

Almost everything mentioned in the various comments here is a scapegoat. These all might contribute a little to the escalating prices at the margins, but they are not the root cause.

The root cause is that many capitalist societies have decided that purchasing a house is the most expensive and important investment most people will make in their lifetime. Therefore these societies gradually shape their policies to ensuring these investments continue to increase or else there are widespread repercussions. The end result is we have collectively refused to build enough housing to keep prices stable or decreasing. The prices need to go up. I don't understand why no one is willing to admit this.

All the other problems originate from this. The reason foreigners want to buy homes as speculation or a place to park their money is because governments are committed to ensuring that housing is a safe and profitable investment. It all comes back to us deciding that a basic human need should also be an investment that always is increasing in value.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#129

Post by jimmydeans »

beebmam wrote: post #47

Why can't we increase property taxes for businesses that own homes? And, for individuals who own more than, let's say, two homes?

Because lots of government make a lot of money and have multiple homes.

It's a fine black of pretending to do something, but just not enough to hurt your friends.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#130

Post by hello_popppet »

I posted this earlier - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30945227. And no, it’s not supposed to be a tongue in cheek.

First of all, this “ban” is for 2 years. Secondly, majority of the homes bought, as in the stark-fucking-majority, are by investment firms. This ban doesn’t apply to them.

This is just another reshuffling of money that’s going to be pocketed by the government cronies. What are they going to spend $10B on? They aren’t the ones building houses and residencies, that’s for sure.

Other commenters in here are spot on. First they tried to swindle us by saying oh no no it’s not the foreigners, you’re just being racist and xenophobic. Now fucking what.

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