71–80 of 1001 posts
We have how many foreign investment agreements? Banning foreign investment is not possible at all. The data is public as well, foreign investors aren't the problem. To say you are doing this would not only be punitively not allowed. So you're literally telegraphing that you intend to do nothing. Or for that matter try to make things worse.
Do these agreements say that foreigners have a right to buy houses in Canada?
Related, I’m concerned about the trend of megacorporations gobbling up single-family homes which appears to be happening in the US and Canada. I wonder if it’s possible to construct a law that would limit corporate ability to acquire these assets while making it possible for families to do so. Unfortunately, even if there is, politicians at least in DC seem to have zero motivation to solve political problems unless t…
Triple or quadruple property taxes after the 10th purchased residence in the state. Encourage tax breaks through high density development of condos with coop property management firms.
Foreigners, especially the billionaire type, can and have been setting up shell corporations through which to purchase Canadian real estate. The proposed measure will do nothing to stop this practice. The measures proposed by the Canadian government are likely just political posturing and indented to "pull the wool over the eyes" of Canadian voters because the housing bubble/crisis has reached epic proportions and ev…
We don't have implementation of the bill yet, just the budget line. Obviously the government knows about this problem, so if they take measures to prevent it, then we'll know they are actually serious. Note that a corporation is not consequence free. An owner occupied home pays no tax on capital gains. A corporation owned one is double taxed.
this statement only matters for the current conversation if taxes raised through this mechanism helped maintain property price levels where the taxes are being raised.
This is really, really stupid. It reeks of economic illiteracy. If you think foreign investor cause harm, just estimate how much harm it is, and tax them accordingly. Why would you ban them? Taxing is almost always more economically efficient than banning. You can even pay out (part of) the tax take to the people you think are harmed. (In general, a land value tax for everyone would be a good idea. But if political r…
Explain how would you tax them effectively then, since they are foreign. Every time I talk about taxing the rich, I'm stormed by people calling me economically illitterate and telling me it's impossible as the rich will always find a loophole. So if you think they can find loopholes on the ban, why couldn't they find loopholes on new taxes? They do already and very effectively.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not super familiar with real estate markets. Has the empty house tax helped in any way? Even if it is not the best solution, is there any huge downside to that ban?
Are there any empty house taxes that charge a significant amount of money? 5% would barely get you into the same range as price growth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. Root cause is crappy city planning and design; and emphasis on single family housing development. Many cities across North America are designed with urban sprawl and car centric travel in mind. Pedestrian and alternative forms of transportation are a second class citizen despite the ability to move people more efficiently than cars will ever do. Don’t get me wrong. Cars have their in place in society but their…
This is literally nothing to do with it. It's to do with wealthy foreigners buying properties and leaving them empty basically to use as an 'asset' rather than a home. London has this problem more than anywhere. Blocks full of purchased and empty while locals can't get a sniff.
What we need is foreign ownership taxes / bans combined with heavy taxes on ownership of multiple single-family dwellings and townhouses.
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.
The core problem is that our money inflates like crazy and we're all looking for something tangible to put it in before the bubble bursts.
This is really, really stupid. It reeks of economic illiteracy. If you think foreign investor cause harm, just estimate how much harm it is, and tax them accordingly. Why would you ban them? Taxing is almost always more economically efficient than banning. You can even pay out (part of) the tax take to the people you think are harmed. (In general, a land value tax for everyone would be a good idea. But if political r…
Explain how would you tax them effectively then, since they are foreign. Every time I talk about taxing the rich, I'm stormed by people calling me economically illitterate and telling me it's impossible as the rich will always find a loophole. So if you think they can find loopholes on the ban, why couldn't they find loopholes on new taxes? They do already and very effectively.