Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#501

Post by bombcar » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #94

kay_s438 wrote: post #57

Singapore enforces 40 percent tax on any foreigners wanting to buy property. Been that way for quite a few years.

Americans are exempted! But it hasn't always been 40% Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD), the government will ramp it up and down to control the private market. It hasn't seemed to had that big of an impact. A small, 2bed condo on land with a 99-year lease costs S$1.6M ($1.2M USD) outside the central business district. But if you really wanted to gain control of home prices and development, just adopt Singapore's 9…

The 99 year lease is kinda functionally equivalent to a 1% a year property tax, and somewhat more honest.

If I could deed my land to the local government a hundred years from now in exchange for 0% property tax, I'd very likely do it (but the government would probably be sad because they need the cash flow now not later).

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#502

Post by kbelder » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #426

alex_sf wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of housing for plenty of people in most parts of North America. The 'problem' is that what people _want_ is cheap housing in urban centers, a.k.a cool spots. Because that doesn't exist, we claim to have a housing shortage.

People also want to live where the jobs are, which is increasingly in cities. I expect most small towns are going to die over the next few decades.

The trend in the last couple years has been the reverse of that, but it'll be interesting to see if that continues now that the most of the pandemic restrictions are over.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#503

Post by MrPatan » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #217

pards wrote: 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…

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…

There is blind bidding in the job market. It's the companies that blind bid for you. What's wrong with that?

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#504

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #455

throwaway894345 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as energy costs increase (EVs won't save us) I don't really disagree with your larger point, but I can't help but explore this nit because it seems interesting. I don't think anyone is arguing that EVs will markedly reduce energy prices; however, there is an argument that renewables will decrease energy prices by virtue of being cheaper per unit power. Of course, it will take at least a decade before renewable ener…

Oh yea I definitely think EVs are the future and to the extent that we have vehicles, in the majority of cases they should be EV. I guess what I'd say here is that even at a reduced cost (which is arguable) for a "commute" (self-driving, etc.) you aren't going to get EVs cheap enough to offset b/c the very act of driving 10, 20, 40, miles to a job or driving a mile down the road to the grocery store is just incompara…

> If I had to completely armchair it here, if you looked at total impact to society, the environment, car accidents, you name it something like a gallon of gas in the US should really be about $20-$30/gallon but it feels like it's expensive at $5 b/c we're so used to the low prices

Price per gallon is probably the wrong unit. You probably want $/mile. Car accidents get priced in via insurance. Environment isn't priced in at all in the US, though a carbon tax could change that if there was any political appetite for it. EVs already significantly reduce fuel and maintenance costs even though ICE cars enjoy a "carbon subsidy" (i.e., pollution isn't priced into the cost of gas).

> people are going to focus on kWh being expensive because they're used to extremely cheap gasoline

Electricity is already much less expensive than gasoline. The current US-average gas price is $4.10/gallon and a 30mpg car will cost over $0.13/mile. The current US-average electricity price is $0.14/kwh--with ballpark 85% charge efficiency (not all energy drawn from the grid makes it into the battery) and 300wh/mile, an EV will cost less than $0.05/mile. EV fuel costs are just over a third of those of ICE vehicles.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#505

Post by be200 » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

la6472 wrote: post #386

Pet_Ant wrote: post #367

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…

The decreased density of sprawl causes the maintenance of infrastructure such as roads, electricity and water to often need to be essentially subsidized by higher density areas. For example, in suburbs with culs-de-sac, taxpayers fund the streets (in perpetuity as they must be maintained) but the vast majority get no utility from them. To your example of a truck doing deliveries, if it did those same deliveries in a more dense area it would obviously travel a smaller distance. IMO sprawl also makes life more difficult and more dangerous for those without cars.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#506

Post by bombcar » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #218

binibus wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vacant properties sitting around empty because of money laundering and speculative usage I don't have the numbers but I find difficult to believe that there's enough properties used for money laundering to move the prices. > usage disparity because rural areas have been left behind by modern infrastructure That's the problem. There are empty houses but too old or in places where people don't want to live. So to low…

> I don't have the numbers but I find difficult to believe that there's enough properties used for money laundering to move the prices. In London, up to a third of all properties (depending on the area) are left empty. At that point I don't care if it's money laundering or speculative usage, but London's nickname "Londongrad" more than hints that an awful lot of Russian oligarchs used London real estate to launder st…

That article seems to imply that a decent percentage of the 239k "empty homes" are not actually fit for habitation, at least not immediately.

For comparison, England apparently has 24.7 million "dwelling units" so that's about 1% sitting empty for more than six months.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#507

Post by geogra4 » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

It's interesting how housing in some countries is seen as a store of value (mostly the anglosphere) whereas in others it's seen as primarily a utilitarian purchase (continental europe and japan)

If I had to choose between the 2 models I'd probably pick the euro/japan one, just out of the logic that you need a house to live and hoarding them for wealth generation seems to have a lot of negative externalities on the economy. It's not really a productive use of capital.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#508

Post by na85 » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

alex_sf wrote: post #400

throwaway894345 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping Canada from increasing its housing stock? Surely Canada has plenty of space for its 30M citizens, right? (Yes, I understand that much of the territory is uninhabitable, but even still...).

There is plenty of housing for plenty of people in most parts of North America. The 'problem' is that what people _want_ is cheap housing in urban centers, a.k.a cool spots. Because that doesn't exist, we claim to have a housing shortage.

We do in fact have an affordability crisis in Canada. I bought a home in a small town outside Toronto (too far to be a commuter town) in 2017 for $425000, and sold it in 2020.

We're friends with the people that bought it from us and on the same street in that same small town in Ontario, houses are going for $1M+ now. This is not entitled millenials wanting to live in Vancouver. This is the place where things are supposed to be affordable. This is exactly the sort of place where Boomers love to tell us to go live if we can't afford the city.

Housing is cheaper if you are willing to relocate to e.g. Swift Current, Saskatchewan where a 2-bedroom home with 900 square feet will cost you $175000, but of course there are very few jobs in a small town of 15000 people that's 3 hours away from the nearest big city and the unemployment rate is among the highest in the province.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#509

Post by bombcar » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

jlahp wrote: post #107

I appreciate an effort, but how can a student afford a house ? Is it possible that a rich parents can invest in properties through their kids on a student visa?

Even before all the housing craziness it was often worth it (if you had the money) to buy a house in a college town for your kid(s) (especially if you had more than one going to the college) and then sell it when they graduate. The cost of ownership over those 4+ years would be cheaper than renting/dorm life, and give more options.

It would become even MORE worth it if you rented the other rooms to other students.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#510

Post by BurningFrog » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

Blaming foreigners for your problems is an eternal classic. Appeals to our tribal instincts I guess.

In reality, foreigners invest in Canadian real estate because it is quickly rising in price. Not the other way.

It's hard to get causality directions right sometimes. Especially when xenophobia implies one direction.