Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#751

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #749

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the broker fee isn't worth it, then sell your house yourself. It's not that hard, but it's not zero work either. In addition, it's increasingly likely that many modern transactions involve a buyer and a seller broker, reducing their commission to half of whatever you pay. I've sold 3 houses myself, and bought 3 without a broker.

In the US, The buyer AND the seller fees are paid by the seller. Even if you have no seller agent, you lose practically every buyer without a buyer agent because many agents will not show you a home not offering a fee. Its a shakedown.

I sold one of the 3 houses I've owned & sold to someone using a buyer broker. The broker reached out to negotiate the fee, and we settled on 2.5% (a bit too easily, I suspect I could have pushed it down to 2%). The last house I sold we almost sold via a buyer agent, and they did the same thing.

They are doing work, so the real question is whether you feel they are overcharging or not for whatever it is that they do.

Also, I think you meant to say "you lose practically every buyer WITH a buyer agent". This has not been my experience.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#752

Post by ameminator » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #661

ameminator wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that this is only one part of the problem. "Wealthy-ish local people" protesting a condo development is not enough to explain this absolute explosion in home prices. The government may be faceless, but there are lots of things that could have been done - including more "development-friendly" practices. However, there's always a cost - do you sacrifice environmental protections? Democratic government prin…

In the United States, by and large, zoning regulations are local, so they're set at the city level. Which makes it quite difficult to get rid of bad land use regulations that cause all kinds of problems. At a certain point, in a place like, say, Boulder, Colorado, it turns into a vicious circle: the only people who can afford to live there are wealthy boomer NIMBY types who will vote down anything to help housing aff…

The US is a bit of a different animal (although it's comparable to Canada, which is what the original article discusses). To my understanding, there are no equivalent "town halls" that can block development - although it does seem to vary by province and municipality.

Also, immigrants to Canada usually move to one of its three main metro areas - Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, which, coincidentally, have also seen the highest amount of housing increases.

Other places, like Calgary or Winnipeg, have not had housing explode in the same way (although prices have risen in smaller amounts there as well).

Keep in mind, the original article is focusing on Canadian housing, which, while complex, may be even simpler than the American model.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#753

Post by tablespoon » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

after_care wrote: post #676

tablespoon wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In many countries, including Europe, new properties are quickly snatched by investment > Demand for housing is not infinite, and supply of capital is not infinite. Building more units will always help. The quantity of units which are bought and then kept empty long term is tiny in relative terms. I think it's kind of pointless to argue over which one policy to pursue to fix this problem, why not try a multi-pronge…

1 and 2 will essentially prevent any sort of a rental market, and rentals clearly play a valuable role for lots of society.

> 1 and 2 will essentially prevent any sort of a rental market, and rentals clearly play a valuable role for lots of society.

Not if the rule is scoped to single-family homes and individual units in multi-owner buildings. Purpose-built rental housing (e.g. apartment buildings) would be exempted for obvious reasons. The intent is to keep large investors out of markets where owner-occupancy is typical. Even in my original comment I did make allowances for single-family home rentals, but they'd have to be from small-scale landlords.

Also suggestion 2 wouldn't prevent a rental market anywhere there's demand for housing, it would just force landlords to drop rents aggressively to get units occupied.

And obviously, as is true for any internet comment suggestion of regulatory changes, actual implementation will be more complicated than can be expressed in a pithy comment that lays out the gist.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#754

Post by KptMarchewa » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #608

iso1210 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

A reasonably fit person can walk 2 miles in 30-40 minutes, so your cab was literally going walking speed.

Not with heavy baggage.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#755

Post by hnlmorg » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #715

dijit wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. But the problem is that the US is about 80-100 years behind Europe in this. Personal economies are literally built on the idea of driving, it will be painful to solve that, but unfortunately it’s necessary to solve it otherwise you end up losing enormous amounts of your life to traffic and the infrastructure cost grows exponentially.

America is simply too big for public transit to replace cars to any great extent. There's an old cliche that goes something like, "In America, people think 100 years is a long time. In Europe, people think 100 kilometers is a long distance." It's pretty much spot on.

Even assuming this is fair (which I don't believe it is) that doesn't explain the localized problems per city that we're discussing.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#756

Post by michael1999 » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

citrusybread wrote: post #480

cameronh90 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's only so far you can bus, train, drive, bike, walk, seaplane, helicopter, hyperloop, or transporter in to go to work. Canadian cities are, just like cities in the US, hitting this limit rather aggressively. Canada's largest urban area is 5.6 million people. London, Paris and Seoul are around double that, NYC is 19 million and Tokyo is 37 million. Why are Canadian cities hitting this limit at such a comparati…

Extreme car dependency. Toronto is suffering from the same problem Dubai has. It suddenly became relevant when sovereignists gained power in Quebec and the business class were worried about Montreal being a liability. So they packed up and went down the 401 to Toronto. It has the infrastructure for a much much smaller city, and one in the North American car-driven style (massive highways, occasional regional rail tha…

I too blame the FLQ. Toronto was well prepared to be Canada's second city. But completely unprepared to be her first.

We didn't build a single subway station for decades.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#757

Post by VincentEvans » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

workaccount21 wrote: post #508

VincentEvans wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if those “citizens” are massively capitalized corps seeking returns on their investments? Who cares if they are domestic or foreign (and if foreign becomes difficult - they’ll just open a subsidiary). I don’t really know whether you have read the rest of what I wrote or just got triggered by me seemingly defending “foreigners” and hit the Reply button. I don’t mean to single you out specifically, there other pos…

I refuse to get into an argument that I know will turn out to be emotional so I'm just going to skip to the last point. >Let’s say we put a huge tax on all real estate that isn’t a primary residence Because cottages are a traditional part of life here and real estate is one of the only ways to make real money for someone with some capital in the middle class.

I am not sure what you are afraid of since every reply seems to narrow the gap in our differences of opinion.

At what point cottages cease to be “way to make real money with some capital in the middle class” and we firmly enter the territory of “make a buck while fuck everyone else”? One or two is probably the former. 80,000 properties we all probably agree is the latter.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#758

Post by bradleyjg » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #729

bradleyjg wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environmental impact reviews are car culture? Public notice and comment processes are car culture? Kafkaesque public bidding processes are car culture? Decade long litigation needed to exercise eminent domain is car culture? Union work rules are car culture?

For the most part, yes. These items are so inherent in public works projects that it is inconceivable that they wouldn’t exist. But try to build or expand a road or parking lot and none of these exist. The culture is literally biased toward the relatively effortless expansion of car use and relatively challenging expansion of anything else. This duality is car culture.

How do you explain how much of a debacle the Big Dig was? Or the new Kosciuszko Bridge?

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#759

Post by barfingclouds » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:31 PM UTC

About time

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#760

Post by ashtonkem » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

aspenmayer wrote: post #672

ashtonkem wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, you don’t need to add a ton of subway stations when you already have an extensive network. 3 stations in 50 years would be a much worse outcome in say, Cincinnati.

That just made me appreciate how much greater value still might be unlocked by simply building as few as 3 stations in metro areas that don't currently have any at all, and then expanding from there. That would be an interesting study if it hasn't been done: what is the MVP of underground subway networks? How many stations do you need for a given area is probably a budgetary concern as much as a passenger capacity co…

> Have any metro areas built entirely new subways where there were none before in recent times?

None that I can think of in the US, but Madrid is generally pointed to as the stellar example of rapid and cheap subway expansion. They added an unbelievable amount of track and stations at really low cost.

> Between 1995 and 2007, the Spanish capital swiftly and cost-effectively upgraded its subway system, building more than 150 new stations over 120 miles at costs far below New York City rates. First, in just four years, Madrid designed, constructed, and opened 39 new metro stations and laid 35 miles of rail, 23.5 miles of which required new tunneling. The expansion was unprecedented for its low costs (about $65 million per mile of rail) and speed. Then, between 2000 and 2003, Madrid built Metro Sur, a 28-station, 25-mile circular subway line that connects the densely populated municipalities south of the city. Simultaneously, Madrid completed a direct metro line from the city’s central business district to its airport, now a 12-minute train ride away. Finally, between 2004 and 2007, commuters in the Madrid region gained an additional 80 new metro and light-rail stations, at a cost of $6 billion.

Just like high speed rail, this was less of a revolution in public works, and more a series of unglamorous minor improvements that added up to something greater than the sum of its parts. The government aimed for speed above all else, with the understanding that delays and financial uncertainty are the doom of any large project. So they would hire multiple teams to bore tunnels at once, and pit them in friendly competitions to bore faster. They negotiated with local land and business owners over more interruptions over a shorter period of time to reduce lawsuits (a big issue in NYC subway expansion), and they designed all the stations to be modular so that they wouldn't waste a ton of time designing and constructing bespoke stations. The sum is that they got it done really fast and really cheap.

Ironically, it looks a bit like the way that we construct our highways.