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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

#811

Post by asiachick »

8note wrote: post #775
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Luxury and affordable buildings only differ by the rent they charge. The quality of the building is determined by building codes

Plenty of people in Hong Kong and Japan live comfortably and happily in apartmetns as small as 300-400 sqft where as in many cities in the west such small apartments are not allowed. That's a building code issue. You can't build cheaper housing because of the code. Similarly in many areas house require garages or parking space and front yards of a certain size by law. Again, housing codes dicate whether you can make something cheaper or not.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#812

Post by chaostheory »

weeksie wrote: post #511
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,…

It'll be interesting in a couple years when prices are still crazy and someone has to come up with an excuse for why. It's amazing to me how resistant people are to the idea that housing is expensive because there aren't enough homes for people to live in. It's always a search for exotic explanations like foreign buyers and mysterious empty apartments.

Yeah, no one wants to admit that musical chairs is a terrible game to play when the authorities refuse to allow the number of chairs to be increased. Shutting out players who already are no longer playing the game doesn't help. China has blocked money from leaving their country for two years now.

EDIT it's been three years and not two

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012312/c...

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#813

Post by chaostheory »

jjav wrote: post #750
weeksie wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be interesting in a couple years when prices are still crazy and someone has to come up with an excuse for why. It's amazing to me how resistant people are to the idea that housing is expensive because there aren't enough homes for people to live in. It's always a search for exotic explanations like foreign buyers and mysterious empty apartments.

> It's amazing to me how resistant people are to the idea that housing is expensive because there aren't enough homes for people to live in. I have to wonder if it is ever possible to build enough in the places everyone wants to live for it to become cheap? Manhattan is extremely dense and yet, incredible expensive. More expensive than nearly every less-dense area. So density isn't helping drive cost down.

Isn't this only possible with Alberta due to all the extra near flat land available? It reminds me of Texas.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#814

Post by nine_k »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #654
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…

(b) is the biggest one. It doesn't make second hand unlivable, it just stops putting a premium on things which clearly aren't premium (unlike say Europe). It also makes it easier to tear things down in case of future needs, whereas Europe tends to "lock" itself in, creating a market which is very inflexible. >(c) Keep in mind 1LDKs (living room, dining room, kitchen) come with everything you'd expect a full apartment…

USA is a "salad bowl", it expects immigrants and varied cultures. Basically, coming from anywhere in the world, with some getting used to, you can blend in.

Japan is much more homogeneous culturally, and as an immigrant you will always be a stranger. Even if people will be nice and polite towards you, they likely won't be able to treat you as they would treat a Japanese, because you'd miss the cultural context which builds up from early childhood on.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#815

Post by anamax »

I see the "{place} should be affordable for anyone who wants to live in {place}" folks are out again.

I'm pretty sure that there are at least 100k, if not 10M, people who'd like to live in Yosemite Valley. Should they be accommodated?

Okay, that's transforming "pastoral" to "urban" and they don't mean that.

I'm pretty sure that there are 10M more people who'd like to live in London (current metro population 14M, London city is 9k, with 500k workers) and at least 2M more people who'd like to live in San Francisco (current population under 900k).

Should those people be accomodated?

I ask because whatever it is that makes London and SF "good" will likely change significantly with the addition of that many people.

Why are the current residents obligated to accept that change?

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#816

Post by chaostheory »

itsoktocry wrote: post #628
twblalock wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When more people show up, you should build more housing. Canada is a big place with a small population relative to its size — you have plenty of space. Your argument might work if Canada was a small island like Singapore, but it is one of the largest countries by land area in the world. What prevents you from just building more housing in all that extra space you have? Zoning laws and nimbyism.

> What prevents you from just building more housing in all that extra space you have? There is plenty of cheap, available housing in the hinterlands of Canada. And yet, nobody wants to move there. Why do you think that is? Prime locations are scarce no matter how much land mass you have.

I thought Alberta has a ton of free space available. No?

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#817

Post by homonculus1 »

imtringued wrote: post #799
homonculus1 wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>[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.

American neighborhoods are homogeneous, and you can see the result when you walk between them.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#818

Post by heavyset_go »

xapata wrote: post #659
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…

> 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.

There are housing insecure people who need housing now and not some nebulous time in the future when the market could, theoretically, correct itself. Markets are notorious for remaining irrational in the face of obvious market forces that should, theoretically, influence them. While we wait for housing to trickle down, people will go without homes, possibly for decades. It's a classic market failure, and doubling down on "markets but more this time" might not exactly help, either.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#819

Post by ng12 »

anamax wrote: post #815

I see the "{place} should be affordable for anyone who wants to live in {place}" folks are out again. I'm pretty sure that there are at least 100k, if not 10M, people who'd like to live in Yosemite Valley. Should they be accommodated? Okay, that's transforming "pastoral" to "urban" and they don't mean that. I'm pretty sure that there are 10M more people who'd like to live in London (current metro population 14M, Lond…

> Why are the current residents obligated to accept that change?

They're not. They just need to admit they want to turn their city into a giant gated community and have-nots be dammed. Then we can have an open and earnest dialogue about it.

Of course, the greatest irony is that many of these cities are heavily progressive so they won't acknowledge the hypocrisy. Instead they'll hide behind environmental regulations or "won't somebody think of the children" or some other nonsense.

As a funny anecdote: I've noticed that in the suburbs of my city the incidence of BLM and "In this house we believe..." signs increases with the socioeconomic exclusivity of the town. Seems that progressive ideals are great as long as you don't have to inconvenience yourself in the slightest to achieve them.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#820

Post by chaostheory »

itsoktocry wrote: post #631
MAGZine wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world are "temporary" foreign workers buying homes in Canada? With what salary? Same with Refugees, students. Funny how in the first hundred years in Canada, we didn't have any issue with housing costs, despite accepting vast amounts of refugees. I'm not saying it's not making the problem worse, but to SOLELY pin it on them is IMO willful ignorance. if we banned all immigrants, of any kind, tomorrow, would Ca…

> Same with Refugees, students. There are Twitter accounts dedicated to calling out multi-million dollar homes in Vancouver and Toronto, owned by "students".

If you're referring to mainland Chinese people, China has banned capital outflows in the last two years. It's so bad and strict that mainland Chinese people are freaking out that they can't move their own money outside of China. Game's changed. Wrong scapegoat.

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012312/c...

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