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Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#31

Of all the things that a person can own, land seems the least justified to me. There is a finite amount of it, you did not create it, you cannot destroy it, and essentially all ownership derives from conquest, in recent or ancient history.

Cue Georgism

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#33
post #23

Canada is also bringing in one million immigrants a year to feed the exploitative low paying job market and to try to stave off recession. These immigrants tend to gravitate in either Toronto or Vancouver. Meanwhile corporate and rich investors are snapping up any property they can get their hands one. In Ontario the Premiere is reclassifying conservation land owner by his buddies to allow them to build developments.…

Instead of being critical of the decisions of others, what do you suggest? Arm chair critics are a dime a dozen, what are your ideas on how to address the housing problems?

Zone every inch of currently settled land to allow 6 story mixed use buildings, by right. Don’t require anything to build besides engineering and safety checks - no chance for NIMBY input. Do this federally.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#35
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already covered in the law. Most provinces are requiring that "beneficial ownership" of any corporation is reported to the government. https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/british-columbia-finalizes... What is more likely is that some foreigner would use a relative in Canada, who has PR or citizenship, to buy the property on their behalf. But foreigners buying home in Canada was never that big of an issue. I think…

While I didn’t follow the news closely, this seems to have come from the Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets. City level laws might have been tried but they lack teeth. This issue is also leading towards a vacancy survey and tax for vacant houses to provide material to escalate (I feel) if necessary. And worldwide, people might want cheaper housing but they din’t want their own house value to decline. The forme…

Housing cannot durably be both a good investment and remain affordable.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#36

Of all the things that a person can own, land seems the least justified to me. There is a finite amount of it, you did not create it, you cannot destroy it, and essentially all ownership derives from conquest, in recent or ancient history.

>you cannot destroy it,

is this really true? you can definitely do things to it that would make it uninhabitable, no longer "fertile", or any other terms that essentially come to the same conclusion of the land being essentially destroyed.

at least as far as the context of desirability to be owned

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#37

There is still the immigration-by-visa route, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Immigrant_Investor_Pr...

"With the passing of Economic Action Plan 2014 Act (Bill C-31) on June 19, 2014, the program was terminated and undecided applications were cancelled."

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#39

Of all the things that a person can own, land seems the least justified to me. There is a finite amount of it, you did not create it, you cannot destroy it, and essentially all ownership derives from conquest, in recent or ancient history.

There's actually a near-infinite amount of land.

We just haven't yet gotten to the point where we can access any of the land not on this planet.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#40

Good symbolic act, but as the fine article states, it’s unlikely to have material effect on housing affordability for the average person until supply is increased.

Improving something is a multi-step process that takes time.

I'm happy they've taken a step in the right direction, an I'm hopeful they'll take more.

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