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Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

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Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#11
post #8

I would have thought that the pandemic and travel restrictions would have effectively “banned foreigners from buying homes” for 2 years. If home prices haven’t fallen during pandemic, then the reason why prices are high is not because of foreigners. The government is trying to point to a scapegoat rather than trying to get to the root cause.

This is primarily about foreign investors who are buying sight unseen, then leaving the homes vacant. Note the exception for permanent residences.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#12
post #8

I would have thought that the pandemic and travel restrictions would have effectively “banned foreigners from buying homes” for 2 years. If home prices haven’t fallen during pandemic, then the reason why prices are high is not because of foreigners. The government is trying to point to a scapegoat rather than trying to get to the root cause.

It's foreign investors they're concerned about, not second home holiday-makers and immigrants.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#13
post #8

I would have thought that the pandemic and travel restrictions would have effectively “banned foreigners from buying homes” for 2 years. If home prices haven’t fallen during pandemic, then the reason why prices are high is not because of foreigners. The government is trying to point to a scapegoat rather than trying to get to the root cause.

From what I've read before, the issue isn't foreigners buying the homes to live in, it's foreigners using it as a way to move cash out of their own country to hedge against devaluation/government blocks. A lot of the houses don't even end up being rented out, they just sit vacant.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#15
post #8

I would have thought that the pandemic and travel restrictions would have effectively “banned foreigners from buying homes” for 2 years. If home prices haven’t fallen during pandemic, then the reason why prices are high is not because of foreigners. The government is trying to point to a scapegoat rather than trying to get to the root cause.

Not at all, you can buy property remotely and you can in vest in clmpanies which buy properties on your behalf.

Trouble is that restricting foreign buyers is meaningless unless you also reign in corporate 'investment', as endless shell conpanies obscure the end benefactor

What you have to do is reign in buying houses as an investment by people who have no intention of ever living in them.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#16
post #9
post #4

So why don't they build more homes?

It could be that there is a sufficient amount of housing (built or being built), but that it is often not occupied on account of just being an asset in a wealthy person’s portfolio. In this case it could be seen as wasteful to build more, and too much of an oversupply could lead to an economic collapse if it’s on a big enough scale. The other possibility is that they are building more homes, and want them to be purch…

>> being an asset in a wealthy person’s portfolio

Why wouldn't that wealthy person rent the property out and get better ROI? Keeping it empty does not make sense to me.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#18
post #14

I wonder if the simpler solution would not be to require residence, for homes in popular locations.

In economics, in general it's usually better to tax than to ban.

In this case, you could just tax foreigners for owning property. Or you could tax non-residents for owning property.

A land value tax would be a good idea in general. But if it's politically necessary to restrict that to people from far away, that's still better than a ban.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#19

According to the government's announcement linked to in the article, the actual proposal is subtly but importantly different: " imposing a two-year ban on foreign capital coming into Canada to buy residential real estate ".

But presumably foreigners can put their capital into a Canadian corporation that they own which then buys the real estate.
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