Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#511

Post by iso1210 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:33 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #475

exfascist wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I hate driving and actually moved to DC for work and also partly for the transit. Here's what I found: 1) Taking the metro many places (for example, from my apartment in an urban "luxury" apartment building a couple blocks from the initial station to my boat near the waterfront in downtown DC) doubled the time it took to get there. It was actually faster to drive there even during rush hour where you'll sit motion…

> Taking the metro many places (for example, from my apartment in an urban "luxury" apartment building to my boat near the waterfront in downtown DC) doubled the time it took to get there. It was actually faster to drive there even during rush hour where you'll sit motionless on the 395 bridge. Depends a lot on where you live and work. My experience was the exact opposite in Chicago. Heck, for some of my jobs I could…

> Depends a lot on where you live and work. My experience was the exact opposite in Chicago. Heck, for some of my jobs I could outrun car commuters on my bike pretty trivially.

I got a taxi from Gare du Nord to a hotel on Champs Eleyse this evening -- took about 40 minutes to go 2 miles. That's ridiculous, but it's apparently a thing.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#512

Post by woah » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:34 PM UTC

quickthrowman wrote: post #133

woah wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> massive investments made by hedge funds, private capital, REITs which does not appear to be addressed at all? If corporations buying houses was actually affecting the purchase market prices, then we'd see an equal effect on rental prices going down. A corporation can't live in a house, so they'd be renting it out. If these evvvill corporations were keeping houses vacant just to screw over regular hard working folks…

How on earth would higher home sale prices by corporations bidding housing up push rent down? It has the exact opposite effect, rents go up if a property costs more..

Seriously? What's the mechanism of this magical connection? Rental prices go up if there is more demand in the rental market.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#513

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

tomatowurst wrote: post #454

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now the Chinese real estate market is incomplete shambles Chinese real estate prices are still pretty high. The government keeps things from bursting by controlling the real estate agents and their companies (owned mostly by red families, they just taper off on sales volume instead of letting prices fall). We will see how long they can keep juggling that. Which is why rich Chinese like to invest in western property…

the Chinese communist party elites send money abroad is to put it out of reach. Very tough for the CCP to auction off your property in Canada or United States. For the Japanese it was cheap debt that exported property inflation which led to an immediate drop in liquidity however currently there is cheap debt locally and its the locals participating in the real estate speculation. the actual foreign ownership is like…

> the actual foreign ownership is like less than 5% in Vancouver

It is probably much higher than that, 5% is just what ownership can clearly be traced to a non-resident foreign owner. But you have a lot of property owned by Chinese students. The government is really conservative when they measure these numbers. Heck, I think the empty Seattle townhome next to mine, which I know is owned by an old retired couple in Beijing (the daughter told us as much before she left), is not counted as foreign owned even though it for all practical purposes is (and was bought with money from China...but then again, I bought my townhome largely with money I earned in Beijing as well).

I'm sure plenty of resident Chinese and Indians own property in Vancouver also (since there are so many of them), but I wouldn't count those as foreign owners either. At that point, it is mostly Canadian money chasing after Canadian assets, rather than Chinese or Indian money. Here in Seattle, it is rich techies driving the market, and many of those just happen to be Chinese or Indian (citizens, permanent residents, and H1s). That is a different problem (rich techies like us bidding up the market, not that many techies are Chinese and Indian).

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#514

Post by chaostheory » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

johndubchak wrote: post #482

wk_end wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere is different. Hamilton may be in favour of densification - I wouldn’t know - but even in Toronto, where I’m from, there’s endless pushback against densifying the single family homes that dominate much of the city. Right now I live in Victoria, and although many people and groups (including the mayor and the province) are pro-development, there’s a loud contingent of busybodies here who oppose literally any…

That doesn't only exist in Victoria and that busy-body group isn't only about building and housing. They are active against many things. I live in California and they complain about people walking down the street, water restrictions, lifting water restrictions, cleaning your driveway with water, not being able to use water, it goes on and on. It does touch on building, but it's mostly about, "NOT IN MY BACKYARD!"

There’s a certain street in SF across from a shopping mall where there are fatal accidents involving pedestrians every year. Consequently, the city planned on building a crosswalk. Well, the NIMBYS blocked it because it would ruin their view.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#515

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:37 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #455

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NIMBYs need to realize that allowing more housing isn't going to tank prices. ... When they tell you that they don't want their neighborhood to densify they actually mean it. Ya, a lot of NIMBYs don't care about housing prices since they aren't thinking about selling anytime soon, they just don't want the traffic and (perhaps) crime that goes along with density. I get what they mean since I became home owner. I don…

> they just don't want the traffic and (perhaps) crime that goes along with density. Something I've been trying to think through recently is that people clearly have some kind of proximity theory of crime. If there is a murder in the building next door to me, then that's going to make me uncomfortable, whether there is one family living in that building or 10. The obvious urbanist (or generic intellectual) response t…

Our per capita property crime numbers are horrible, and it doesn't have much to do with our neighborhoods being dense so much as it has to do with Seattle being a welcoming place for unhoused neighbors (encampments and derelict RVs on the street drive much of the crime). So we get all the problems from a large region that isn't so welcoming.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#516

Post by ryeights » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:39 PM UTC

hello_popppet wrote: post #214

We all know that on an intuitive level, housing can never be affordable again in the West. At least in the areas that are currently out of reach for most people. The outlands, maybe, remain inhabitable but far removed from major cities. There’s no policy out there that will, by the time you wake up tomorrow, bridge the twenty-fold gap between what majority of people in the country make and what an apartment (never mi…

> These are all ways to ignore the real problem.

> I suggest you stop looking for policies […] you’d spend your whole life renting and paying off someone else’s mortgage anyway.

> Now ask yourself if that’s the future you want, and act accordingly.

Sorry? I don’t speak in vagueries.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#517

Post by medvezhenok » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:40 PM UTC

jl2718 wrote: post #427

joshlemer wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I guess in that framing, I as a renter am expressing that I am not willing to bear this tax burden, and so will be voting accordingly.

You should always vote for less taxes on yourself. Voting for more taxes on other people does not reduce your taxes.

I would say that there are moral positions where you should vote for more taxes on yourself (and others like you), not less. Because always voting for less taxes for yourself is a zero sum game where everybody loses, since the government has to be funded somehow (and I prefer it to be done via taxes versus inflation, which is much more regressive).

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#518

Post by tejohnso » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:40 PM UTC

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…

You can list and sell on mls yourself through a low cost "mere posting" agent agreement. A few hundred bucks.

Why sellers want to pay tens of thousands in commission in a bidding war environment is a mystery to me.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#519

Post by temp8964 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:41 PM UTC

VincentEvans wrote: post #507

temp8964 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you don't understand economics. Without the massive investments, housing will be even more expensive.

Others who have replied offered their point of view. Some agreed, some disagreed. You, though, shouldn’t have even bothered. Next time hit that downvote button and move on.

Your this reply is even worse, don’t you see it?

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#520

Post by kbenson » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:42 PM UTC

CountSessine wrote: post #174

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…

You're fighting scarcity. You still won't win the bidding war - it just won't be as one-sided. Stop championing scarcity by blaming scapegoats. Either we limit Canada's crazy-high immigration rate (1% of population every year) or we build more homes which is mostly gated by illiberal zoning laws passed by municipalities. But both of these policies are very popular so you'll be swimming upstream, politically. While yo…

> You're fighting scarcity.

No, they're fighting market inefficiency. A free market requires accurate and timely information to be efficient. This is literally people putting constraints on the market for what they are selling so the information is not available to one side, and the price is inflated.

A rational actor should walk away from a system like this, but if that's all that's available around you because of scarcity, you're forced to work at a disadvantage.

Banning this is akin to banning other anticomptitive behavior, such as collusion and monopolies. That is, it's up to the government to decide whether the harm outweighs the problems regulation introduces (regulation always introduces some level of friction and problems, you just hope to minimize them and maximize the benefits it brings) and is thus worth pursuing.