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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

#471
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is well written and is something I noticed too during my own house hunt: houses owned by teachers, plumbers, and car mechanics were getting fought over by engineers, doctors, and lawyers.

A fun thought experiment is trying to imagine what career an 18 year old today should work towards if they want to own one of those homes. VC or Onlyfans? How can anyone plan for the future when prices might double between the start and end of a degree? They did for me… I think the only option left is moving away. Everyone in tech is already doing it

Moving away is and always HAS been the response; the only reason Seattle is a hotbed of real estate activity is because of the huge influx of people over the last 30 years, escaping rising Californian prices. Currently Arizona and Texas are seeing influxes, and there are other areas, too.

It's not like major cities don't exist except on the coasts.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#472
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why does something like blind bidding exist in real estate? It could exist in all sorts of places but doesn't. Imagine blind bidding when interviewing for a job. Write down the number you'd be willing to do the job for. Someone came in with a lower number, please resubmit. These weird market distortions in real estate have underlying causes. A lot of them are based off patchwork rules and regulations…

>Imagine blind bidding when interviewing for a job. Write down the number you'd be willing to do the job for. Someone came in with a lower number, please resubmit. This is how it works in the trades, for contractors, and some small company employees. I've Never Been Told what past applicants for a job position asked for salary and were denied

Those are scenarios where the bidders are experts who participate in the market every day, which are very different from the home selling market where the average bidder will have participated never, once, or maybe twice in their lives (and be assisted by an agent who is paid for by the other party).

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#473
post #439
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in Canada, but I am in the NYC region, and your comment is absurd. Assuming you want to live in a safe area, but not live inside the 5 city boros, you're looking at 1MM for a house, and an hour+ commute. But yeah, "cool spots". /s

There’s certainly an element of ignorance in their comment, but there’s also some truth. I am originally from a rural area in the Midwest USA. I know a statistically significant number of people from high school and college who purposely moved to bigger cities because of “the culture” or “there’s so much more to do.” They are right. I live in a much bigger city now for those exact reasons, but the demand justifiably…

The average house price in Canada is over 800k now. In a city like Toronto I would expect that to be higher.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#474
post #98

I'm a homeowner in Toronto and I don't think this will help. They've eliminated a small number of buyers from the market but have added other incentives like a first home buyers tax credit that will only fuel the fire - Australia tried this with tragic results. >> working with provinces and territories to develop and implement a Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights and bring forward a national plan to end blind bidding. Blind…

> "IMHO blind bidding is an unethical practice" When you're applying to a new job, do you feel it's ok for the hiring company to ask you what exactly you currently make so that they can offer you $1.00 more than what you currently today? If not, how is that not "unethical"? (Also note, in the US at least - you can't ask someone what they currently earn). I just don't understand why it's unethical. Maybe the seller wa…

>Also note, in the US at least - you can't ask someone what they currently earn.

But they sure do like to tell you.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#475
post #98

I'm a homeowner in Toronto and I don't think this will help. They've eliminated a small number of buyers from the market but have added other incentives like a first home buyers tax credit that will only fuel the fire - Australia tried this with tragic results. >> working with provinces and territories to develop and implement a Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights and bring forward a national plan to end blind bidding. Blind…

> Australia tried this with tragic results

It's the opposite, worked like charm. Your main voting base, powerful people, developers, banks want price of properties to increase.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#476

Building more housing is the only "pure" way out of this. Fuck nimbys, the government needs to just step in an do it.

Ironically it's the government stepping in with regulation and zoning that is preventing people from building more housing (that low and middle income people can feasibly afford). The cost of building a new home on an empty piece of land can be astronomical and so builders would rather get the massive sums of initial capital from outside investors, build a luxury building for high income earners and cash out instead…

How it used to work is that the new houses would go to the richer people with money, and the older houses would end up cheaper (because why would you buy an older house for the same price as a new one).

Once supply dries up or the influx of new people is greater than new supply, the people priced out of the market are at the bottom.

It's similar to how you can't build used cars - the used car market is dependent on the new car market.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#477
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but if we want to address climate change and protect the environment, then we need to do this without sprawling outwards.

Nothing is better than sprawling outwards. Most of the white collar jobs can be done remotely , so commute is not needed. Most of groceries and other stuff can be delivered. A truck doing 100 deliveries is surely less traffic than everyone going to the supermarkets. And most importantly with sprawling outwards citizens can enjoy the outdoors and take care of their health. And even more importantly high density of pop…

> A truck doing 100 deliveries is surely less traffic than everyone going to the supermarkets. And most importantly with sprawling outwards citizens can enjoy the outdoors and take care of their health.

No, the lowest traffic solution is having the smallest number of trucks that are needed to serve local markets that a relatively high volume of people can access via walking, biking or mass transit. All that walking, very healthy.

Further, why should city dwellers subsidize this expansion? Surely these far flung communities won't have sufficient revenue to support the infrastructure needed to make all that work.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#479
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because it increases the risk of default. For who? Banks don’t hold mortgages on their books, they sell them to investors. I don’t think you understand how modern finance works.

Yeah I guess I am not trying to provide a super in-depth explanation of how finance works here, since that's not the topic we're discussing. I am not a financial expert, but I have been told by professionals, and read in credible publications, that financing entities are not thrilled about the idea that people can effectively 100% finance additional home purchases using HELOCs, rather than having a cash downpayment.…

100% financing is problematic mainly because the "owner" has zero incentive to not walk away if the house goes below purchase price even if they could afford to keep up the payments.

This puts the "bank" (read: bank and the investors the bank sold the loans to) in a precarious position, as a slight downturn in the market could result in a large percentage of loans defaulting.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#480

Im one of those 'greedy' old farts who owns more than one home. We have one for ourselves and 5 rentals. Im starting to agree with those who are feeling priced out of the market. What would make me stop buying homes? A graduated tax would. If there were no sales tax on the first two, and then 15% tax on the third, 25% tax on the 4th, and going up by 10% for each subsequent house, it would definitely make me quit buyi…

Don't see why the government deserves to profit off it.

The government isn't a for-profit organization, its profits are our profits. We all get to profit off it. If the government makes profit off it, that's just corruption.

(I've been living in Sweden for a while)

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