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

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#791

Post by shkkmo » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:07 PM UTC

la6472 wrote: post #611

arrosenberg wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

City dwellers are not subsidizing anybody. In fact there are certain things the government does for the common good. Like protecting border or extending healthcare. It is the kind of civic planning that determines if a community will be able to support ordinary human aspirations like living a comfortable life in a spread out space or a community is going to pile like ants on top of each other. Of course certain peopl…

> City dwellers are not subsidizing anybody.

City dwellers already subsidize rural living through taxes. On the federal level, more rural states are subsidized by more urban ones, paying more per capita and receiving less per capita. Similar things happen at the state level, but the numbers are a bit harder to track down.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#792

Post by hgomersall » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:09 PM UTC

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #694

clpm4j wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliminating a subset of buyers, i.e. slightly decreasing demand, is an easy and obvious action to take. Will it have a significant and long lasting effect? Very likely not. But when examining the supply-demand equation, it's painfully obvious to say "foreigners who don't live here should not be allowed to buy residential housing". It's way, way easier than incentivizing developers to build affordable housing and deal…

> build affordable housing Lets build shitty buildings that will last for decades. Affordable housing is and will always be a horrible idea. Build and build until you get a surplus and suddenly tons of housing is affordable.

Affordable doesn't mean shit, it means not optimised to gouge as much cash as possible from the buyer, and also probably means coming with a price control covenant. Many council houses in the UK were historically built to very high spec.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#793

Post by frenchy » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:09 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #709

xapata wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incentivizing developers to build affordable housing But that's unnecessary. If developers build more luxury housing, that'll reduce the price of existing housing, such that it becomes affordable.

> If developers build more luxury housing, that'll reduce the price of existing housing, such that it becomes affordable. Not really: Say there's one free acre of land in town. You could build one mansion on it, or a highrise with 100 apartments. Building the mansion isn't going to move the needle on any existing housing at all, as it's just one unit.

As long as land prices are high, a highrise should net a lot more profit though, would it not?

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#794

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

la6472 wrote: post #761

zekrioca wrote: post #757

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I cannot imagine ordering fruits and vegetables online: how do you assure its quality without actually looking at them? I always prefer picking these myself, so yes, maybe it is a good idea to offer better transportation means to those who prefer to do in person grocery.

Just grow as much as you can yourself. After all that is the perks of living in the suburbs.

[deleted]

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#795

Post by imtringued » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #568

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #557

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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'…

That is actually a good idea but you shouldn't tax the improvement to the land. If someone constructs a building that building should be privately owned just like a car would be privately owned.

A national dividend that pays out land value taxes democratizes access to land for all citizens of that nation and thereby makes it pointless to have exclusive access over specific plots of land for the sake of rent seeking. It only makes sense to own a plot of land if you want to "work" that land or rephrased, when society collectively agrees that you should have this plot of land.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#796

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #709

xapata wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incentivizing developers to build affordable housing But that's unnecessary. If developers build more luxury housing, that'll reduce the price of existing housing, such that it becomes affordable.

> If developers build more luxury housing, that'll reduce the price of existing housing, such that it becomes affordable. Not really: Say there's one free acre of land in town. You could build one mansion on it, or a highrise with 100 apartments. Building the mansion isn't going to move the needle on any existing housing at all, as it's just one unit.

Except, in a competitive/expensive market, the developer will pick the high-rise (almost) every time when allowed by law.

Locally, when I see people complain about luxury housing being built, it's because the developer is building high-spec townhomes and selling them for $800k+. Instead of lower-spec townhomes at $500k. The developer can't fit appreciably more homes in the same footprint (they're all 3-4 stories tall here - reducing size likely means one fewer stories). And the market will bear $800k+, so that's what we get.

The real answer is build even more homes. Or allow high-rises on the same lots.

In theory, the family that buys the $800k townhome came from somewhere. The smaller house they vacated is now open for somebody else (who in turn moved out of a studio flat that's now open, and on down).

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#797

Post by shkkmo » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #245

bko wrote: post #217

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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…

The revenue equivalence theorem for auctions suggests it doesn't matter that much. Now, empirical testing has shown violations of this theorem, but the magnitude of the violations are not so huge as to really move the needle. Someone might be paying 10% more in a sealed bid first price auction than they otherwise would, but it's unlikely that it's more than that, and it may be a good deal less or none at all. No matt…

a 10% bump over market price quickly adds up to a high rate of price increases simce that bumped price helps form the new, higher market price which is then bumped up by the auction process even higher.

In addition, the process being described is NOT a "sealed bid first price auction" as the seller opens the bids and requests rebids without disclosing the current winner or top bid. The only reason to do this over a normal auction of that type is to trick people into thinking they didn't win, so they bid higher.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#798

Post by HideousKojima » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

andrewmutz wrote: post #614

cosmiccrisp wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Plenty of those immigrants work in the housing industry building houses. Immigration is increasing both the supply and demand of housing.

Labor generally ranges from 20-40% of the cost of a home, the land and materials make of the majority. An absolutely massive percentage of all immigrants would need to be in construction to outweigh the increased demand from their presence.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#799

Post by imtringued » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

homonculus1 wrote: post #673

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokyo is the farthest possible away you can get from a favela.

>[homogenous Japanese population] is the farthest possible away you can get from [unrestricted immigration from the southern hemisphere]. Why yes, indeed, it is!

This is an absurd argument considering that American zoning has been exceptionally successful at segregating black people into their own separate communities. You have homogenous American neighborhoods and cities. When you are blaming someone else in this way you are not only admitting defeat but you are also an asshole.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#800

Post by imtringued » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

mise_en_place wrote: post #718

rasz wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you call local corruption productive.

You cannot lie in the foreign exchange market. If you bs your productivity vis-a-vis loose money supply, your currency will rightly be worthless. The USD would usually be worthless too, it's just that due to Petrodollar system and reserve currency status, it's artificially propped up to be strong.

I hope you notice the irony in your comment. You praise the exporters while completely ignoring that imports must exist in equal proportion to exports.