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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

#601

Post by Aerroon »

3pt14159 wrote: post #568
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really should follow Japan on this: (a) National zoning (b) A culture that abhors second hand housing (so structures don't appreciate like land does). Housing that depreciates is no longer a sound investment. (c) Liberal definition on minimal standard housing to rent (central heating not required, toilets can be shared, no personal shower or even a shower at all in the building you are renting a room in, small spa…

Or we could, you know, intelligently tax property nationally and tie it to a national dividend that directly goes to landed immigrants and citizens in the form of a basic income. It will make sure that the poor and lower middle class don't get hosed and simultaneously make property a less attractive investment for foreigners or would-be mansion builders. I don't want to live in the same place my whole life and I don'…

>It will make sure that the poor and lower middle class don't get hosed and simultaneously make property a less attractive investment for foreigners or would-be mansion builders.

It will also make sure that you get enough leeway to build in all the corruption you want. Or at least all the NIMBYism you want.

"Yeah, to build in this region you have to pay this huge tax unless you fill out this form and we approve."

Any time you build an intelligent (read: complex) system you rely on the goodwill of the people that build it and maintain it to do what you want the system to do. This in turn gives those people great opportunities to take advantage of others.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#602

Post by ZoomerCretin »

collegeburner wrote: post #280
NamTaf wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s largely understood (I am in a pub halfway across the world and have no specific citation) that the FHBG just bumped the purchase price up by that amount. In Australia, many new buyers’ max purchase prices are dictated by their total borrowing capacity (in that, few limit themselves to less), and many FHBs are competing against each other for a similar cross-section of the market, so grants are easily absorbed by…

Yeah this is the same problem we have with college in America: prices keep rising because the government keeps lending more.

This is actually a disproven myth. College prices rise because historically high state funding per student has been cut or not kept pace with increasing enrollment. The federal government has capped the amount it loans to $52k for an undergraduate degree for a long time now. Reducing access to federal loans doesn't have anything to do with the cost of providing a college education.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#603

Post by nullc »

hibikir wrote: post #570
dimitrios1 wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause of the supply constraint that ultimately gives real estate it's value is the land, and more specifically, the land being in a particular location . For example, a row of condos built right next to a major employer of the town, in the center of the city. That land is going to be valuable so long as that town exists, and as the population continues to grow, will only become more valuable. Adding more hou…

I think that most YIMBYs are arguing the opposite: That if I buy a piece of land, and I want to build a duplex in it, all the way to the property line, I should be able to do it. As it is, zoning and the approval processes make all kinds of viable projects impossible to do, by the property owners. If I wanted to turn my single family house into a duplex, or just tear it down and build bigger, to far closer to the pro…

> So how is asking to be allowed to redevelop your own lot being against private property ownership?

To answer that: consider, would me being allowed to build a joint pig farm and jet engine testing facility 10 feet from your bedroom window be compatible with your property rights?

Externalities exist. Changes in the usage-- which includes density-- of the surrounding property can have a real effect on the existing residents. Debate over zoning is just a debate over the thresholds.

This isn't to say that existing policies in any particular place are well informed. But the basic concept of setting out the characteristics of neighboring properties, particularly to the extent that these rules were done in advance of your ownership and were clearly established, not only doesn't conflict with private property rights but can help protect them.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#604

Post by FredPret »

yoavm wrote: post #480
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

This is true for an ideal and perfect bureaucracy. But in practice, some government employees will use bigger budgets to arrogate more power to themselves - bigger projects, more headcount.

Now we do need a degree of bureaucracy, but it’s best to have most of the money circulate in the market where there is pressure to employ it efficiently or lose it.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#605

Post by ragnot »

corry wrote: post #231
RocketOne wrote: post #201

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…

I agree this is closer to the root of the problem. It's not just foreign capital, or faceless corporate ownership (although both are part of it). IMO it's that every professional / business / owner / wealthy person in Canada can basically easily borrow against their existing home equity, use that to purchase add'l rental units, and claim the mortgage interest as an expense against the rental income (thereby making th…

Your loop-hole doesn't make any sense. Mortgage interest is deducted against income but that doesn't make your loan "free" from cost since the tax rate isn't 100%.

Example:

$1000 in net operating income, $500 in mortgage interest, 25% tax rate

Taxes paid = (1000 - 500) * 0.25 = $125

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#606

Post by JumpCrisscross »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #583
weeksie wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't enough homes _where people want to live_ and you solve that buy building more homes _where people want to live_. But that's difficult because cities have all these veto points. It takes forever to get new construction going, right? Exactly. That's why we aren't building enough, because in the current regulatory environment we can't. That's what people talk about when they talk about NIMBYism as the cause…

"you solve that buy building more homes _where people want to live_. But that's difficult because cities have all these veto points" I'm not going to pretend there isn't some literal gatekeeping going on here that make this more difficult than necessary. But I'm also not exactly surprised that in cities as already densely packed as Los Angeles that there aren't exactly acres or hectacres of land just sitting around t…

> cities as already densely packed as Los Angeles

I live in Manhattan. LA is far from densely packed.

It’s idiotically packed, seemingly to maximise time spent in traffic and minimise the number of bars, restaurants and essentials within walking distance of the average resident. But visit Tokyo or Paris if you want to see true density.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#607

Post by oneoff786 »

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…

Pretty sure this is a thing for some contract work. Not individual hires, generally.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#608

Post by biggc »

cosmiccrisp wrote: post #565
huevosabio wrote: post #493

These are boogieman policies that have zero influence on the root cause. Foreign investors jump into the housing market because the current system ensures that the supply of housing is limited so it is an attractive way to park your wealth. But that is not the root cause. The root cause is the system that is geared to keep houses always appreciating via supply constraints: aggressive zoning, discretionary permitting,…

>The root cause is the system that is geared to keep houses always appreciating via supply constraints: aggressive zoning, discretionary permitting, NIMBYism. I don't agree that this is the root cause. The root cause is the artificial demand on housing created though our mass immigration policy. Canada accepts _at least_ 500,000 people per year through various channels, "temporary" foreign workers, international stud…

> There are 9 million people in Canada (a country of around 40M) currently living here on 10 year visa's. - Crazy!

Talk about distorting statistics in bad faith to further xenophobia…

The 10 year visa is a non resident visa that allows temporary enter into Canada during that period.

It doesn’t let people work, and just because someone has the Visa doesn’t mean they’re currently living in Canada

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#609

Post by harambae »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #190
beaconstudios wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see a resurgence of social democracy coming soon as the problems with things like real estate investment and unrestricted emissions come home to roost. We've already seen a little bit of that with Bernie Sanders.

I can't speak for the US, but here in NL, I don't see things changing very soon for various reasons. Very few voters actually care to solve the issue. Home owners still far outweigh those who don't. Quite a few of the older generation bank on their property/properties to carry them through retirement. No one wants to see their house go under, even if they can realistically endure it without severe consequences. There…

> There's no incentive to increase interest rates

At some point the market decides this, if inflation persists. BND (NASDAQ) is already down over 9% YTD and that's supposed to be the safe half of split stock/bond investing.

Despite how some people seem to view the Federal Reserve (and whatever the central bank of Canada is) neither country is a full on centrally planned economy, at least not yet.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#610

Post by hpkuarg »

AYBABTME wrote: post #449
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.

You portray it as being some capricious choice by entitled brats, but ignore that there's economic and efficiency advantages for society to have more centrally located workforce and services.

As the current supply chain crisis evinces, efficiency shouldn't be the end-all, be-all of policy.
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