Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#761

Post by hnlmorg » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

exfascist wrote: post #496

hnlmorg wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you’re comparing the commute by public transport in the current status quo and missing the point that fixing the car culture means improving public transport so that it does become more convenient than taking the car. Plenty of European cities have achieved this. I work in London and I wouldn’t even dream of driving into the city. It’s far more convenient to get the train.

I think you should read my comment a little more carefully. 1 and 2 are due to serious physical and economic constraints that are very unlikely to change and apply to all but the absolute most dense areas. Remember, this is in DC. It's unusually dense and is supposed to be the best we have. 3 and 4 are additionally due to cultural, historical, and demographic problems that are becoming worse rather than better and th…

DC isn't unusually dense. It's only the 6th most dense city in America and not even in the top 100 for the world. It doesn't even have an districts that are in the top 100 (Paris, on the other hand, features several districts and still has good public transport networks).

And this is just looking at density in terms of population. There's also building density, London would rank very high up there and has excellent public transport.

The problem in DC isn't technical; the problem is cultural. You see the car as a solution so you keep investing in roads and under funding public transport. Whereas Europe took a different approach. Some UK cities have "park and ride" schemes where you parks on the outskirts and get a cheap bus into the city. Buses will have their own dedicated lanes too so aren't subject to congestion. Some of these cities even go as far as pedestrianizing chunks of the city center so the only way to access it is via subway, bus, tram or bicycle.

The benefits of improving public transport isn't just reducing congestion either. You improve the transport for the vulnerable (elderly, poor, etc), you improve the air quality in the city, you improve road safety. It's better for the environment, it's better for peoples health, it's better for moving people around. But it requires a cultural shift to happen.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#762

Post by Dracophoenix » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

tomatowurst wrote: post #241

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They already taxed and stopped foreign buyers but the home prices in Vancouver keep going up as sales amongst local Canadians make up most of the volume. These were always easy to work around: how many Chinese students come to Canada to study and just happen to have a few million dollars to spend on a house? The new proposal is also easy to work around, the Canadian government isn't serious about solving the specul…

> Perhaps. We already went through this in the 80s with the Japanese, and after the Japanese real estate bubble burst, Vancouver real estate was depressed for almost a decade (I remember the signs for condos starting at $100k in 1997! And no one was blaming the Hong Kongese for that at the time). China is just Japan 2.0 in this regard: after the Chinese property bubble bursts, Vancouver real estate will be heavily ef…

>Now this is why I love HN, its to see another fisherman!

Is "fisherman" supposed to be a Canadian expression?

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#763

Post by lhorie » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

aspenmayer wrote: post #696

lhorie wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, for a market like the SF Bay Area, sure, the political landscape wrt housing is notoriously difficult to navigate, but at least for Toronto, I never got the impression of housing construction being deterred to as significant of a degree. In fact I'd say condos have been going up all over the place for decades to the extent that people were even voicing concerns over disappearing parking lots as construction c…

> There's no easy way to regulate who gets to buy houses and who doesn't. I get what you’re saying, but didn’t Canada do just that? That’s not to say that it was easy, but I think it’s a step in the right direction. Additional/secondary homes, and especially empty homes need to be taxed more to help disincentivize the anticompetitive behavior in the housing market that you mentioned.

I think making it harder for foreigners to buy houses as appreciating assets has always been a talking point and I suppose it probably helps if the bar against foreign money is higher, but I see it more as a whack-a-mole game. The example of chinese kids buying property to park their parents' money comes to mind as a way that people get around regulations. It's relatively easy to get permanent residence and even citizenship compared to the time scales of real estate, combined with the "using family members to siphon money out of China" thing.

But you're right, I don't think there's going to be a single action that solves the problem fully on its own, so taking it one step at a time is a good approach.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#764

Post by michael1999 » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

cameronh90 wrote: post #392

techsupporter wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's what the person you replied to mean when they wrote: > hitting the limits of sprawl (congested highway commute time) 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. In cities where sprawl isn't physically prohibitive, like Calgary or Toronto,…

> 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…

That's an interesting question, but it skips some steps.

The reason is that these are all post-war constructions. London and Paris (I don't know Seoul) already had dense, walkable cores that predate not just the modern highway, but even the automobile. Inner London was 5 million people in 1911, and the rise of the car drove that population down! And things didn't really get going until the highway boom. The interstate system (and similar projects in Canada) didn't start until the 50s, and didn't finish until the 80s. So this whole project is fairly recent. Highways enabled a whole new kind of development - the suburban project. And now the boom is over, and it's time for the hangover.

And you'll note that it hasn't been all at the same time. LA famously hit these limits in the 80s. While Atlanta only hit them in the last couple of decades. What you're seeing is the end of a long process.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#765

Post by ashtonkem » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #758

voisin wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The big dig is actually a pretty phenomenal example of what we're talking about. It was a dumb project that was extremely expensive, incapable of fixing the problems it was supposed to fix, highly disruptive to locals, and it still got built.

Meanwhile complaints from a tiny number of affected people completely scuppered the high speed rail planned between Los Angeles and San Francisco before any track got laid.

Governments pull out the stops to complete car-centric infrastructure even over the loud complaints of the populace, but flinch the moment there is any push back against any public transit. Heck, trading on street parking for a bike lane is often a herculean effort.

Oh, and there's this little gem about the Big Dig "As of 2021, promised projects to extend the Green Line beyond Lechmere, to connect the Red and Blue subway lines, and to restore the Green Line streetcar service to the Arborway in Jamaica Plain have not been completed. Construction of the extension beyond Lechmere has begun.[20] The Red and Blue subway line connection underwent initial design,[21] but no funding has been designated for the project. The Arborway Line restoration has been abandoned, following a final court decision in 2011.[22]".

So once again, governments promised the moon about public transit and then did a rug pull once the highways were done. They in fact used this as an opportunity to destroy existing streetcar service. Exactly what we've been talking about.

> Or the new Kosciuszko Bridge?

Completed in 3 years. Again, we are really capable of building stuff, so long as that stuff supports cars.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#766

Post by michael1999 » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

52-6F-62 wrote: post #328

michael1999 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is a big country. But immigration goes where the jobs are, and those are concentrated in 3-5 large cities which are hitting the limits of sprawl (congested highway commute time) and geography (water and mountains). Densification is unpopular with existing municipal voters, and bankrupting CPP would be unpopular with federal voters.

Densification is absolutely not unpopular with municipal voters! My current city, Hamilton, is currently fighting with the Ontario government over this matter. The mayor is a regular feature on the local news and speaks to that often. Their major push is for more density and resources for urban development. The provincial government has pushed for developing in Ontario's green belt and watershed instead. They've face…

I gave you an upvote for local info. But here in Toronto, we elected Rob Ford who canceled every transit project in flight, and anyone who wants to tear down a rotting house to put up a four-flex faces a 10 year fight.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#767

Post by ashtonkem » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #754

ashtonkem wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not with heavy baggage.

Duh? I wasn't literally suggesting that GP walk from a hotel; baggage was obviously implied by the context. I'm just commenting on how taking a taxi on that route is less time and speed efficient than walking.

Obviously a bus would be a better choice, or a train depending on geography. They handle baggage just fine.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#768

Post by exfascist » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 2:48 PM UTC

hnlmorg wrote: post #761

exfascist wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should read my comment a little more carefully. 1 and 2 are due to serious physical and economic constraints that are very unlikely to change and apply to all but the absolute most dense areas. Remember, this is in DC. It's unusually dense and is supposed to be the best we have. 3 and 4 are additionally due to cultural, historical, and demographic problems that are becoming worse rather than better and th…

DC isn't unusually dense. It's only the 6th most dense city in America and not even in the top 100 for the world. It doesn't even have an districts that are in the top 100 (Paris, on the other hand, features several districts and still has good public transport networks). And this is just looking at density in terms of population. There's also building density, London would rank very high up there and has excellent p…

>6th most dense city in America

Then both in terms of any arbitrary area in the US or any arbitrary city in the US, it's unusually dense (much more dense than the mean density.)

>Park and ride

Many places in the US have these and both DC and the suburbs around it are full of them.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#769

Post by Dracophoenix » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 3:00 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #152

giobox wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacking rich foreigners for not paying enough to their adopted homes is fairly common throughout the world, no? America does make it harder to avoid paying tax with a system that taxes income regardless of which country you earned it in, but most of the rest of the world does not work this way. To use the UK as an example, attacking rich foreigners for their "non-domiciled" tax status is extremely common. This is w…

But at least in the USA, the left treats the rich pretty uniformly (no distinction is made between rich born-here citizen, rich citizen immigrant, or rich foreigner). Many don't even know Elon Musk was born in South Africa, nor do they really care. Tax evasion is seen as a moral problem no matter how you accomplish (so hiding it with your other citizenship is just as bad as using a shell company).

>Tax evasion is seen as a moral problem no matter how you accomplish (so hiding it with your other citizenship is just as bad as using a shell company).

Tax evasion is a legal term, not a moral one. Tax evasion isn't a problem in USA given that it has the highest compliance rate in the world. Jurisdictional arbitrage is a freedom and should be protected as such.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#770

Post by Dracophoenix » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

elevaet wrote: post #641

davidw wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here where I live, the people who show up at hearings to stop homes from being built are all wealthy-ish local people. Not immigrants, not some faceless government, not BlackRock, but our neighbors.

I have a close family member who works in municipal planning, and it's exactly what you describe. Wealthy-ish, semiretired older local people, or non-locals with vacation property who do everything they can to shut down any kind of housing project. Their methods include suing the town at great expense to the taxpayers and floating their own and sympathetic friends into town council. It's extremely frustrating when a…

> Their methods include suing the town at great expense to the taxpayers and floating their own and sympathetic friends into town council.

Those very same people are the taxpayers. They have and should have the right to represent their interests in a court of law. If the town ends up being a victim of it, so be it.