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Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#41

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

dylan604 wrote: post #36
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #22

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

I mean, China is pretty good at creating land.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#42

Post by charcircuit »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #22

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.

Everything physical you can buy is made up of things that are of a finite amount and were not created by humans.

All ownership works like that.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#43

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

kennend3 wrote: post #28
Jemm wrote: 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?

[flagged]

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#44

Post by steve_adams_86 »

cek wrote: post #39
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #22

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.

Of course, but that has no practical implications in the near or perhaps even distant future.

Even using the ocean as a fresh water source — which is right here on earth — is a challenge with significant hurdles to overcome.

Even with near infinite land it will presumably be a long, long time before common people can set out into this new frontier and carve out anything like a familiar, safe, let alone comfortable life.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#45

Post by standardUser »

hestefisk wrote: post #11

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.

Just because a policy does not solve a problem outright does not make it symbolic. The article discusses other measures that have already been implemented and points out that current housing prices are way off their peak from a year ago. If this policy further reduces demand even a little, that will have an impact on the trajectory of housing prices. That's not symbolism.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#46

Post by brailsafe »

feet wrote: post #15
blitzar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and do absolutely nothing to the big $$ driving home prices up Are the price rises because 1 person bought a penthouse for $100mil or because a million 'normal' people outbid each other for the 100k house in the suburbs?

Or perhaps because one corporation is outbidding a million normal people for 100k homes?

It's more like corporations and individuals and rich foreigners outbidding a million normal people for the house in worthwhile cities that are $1.5m+

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#47

Post by smnrchrds »

diceduckmonk wrote: post #34

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

No. Out of all the provinces, territories, and federal immigration schemes, only Quebec still has an immigration by investment program, and they have changed it to make it super difficult. It's no longer enough to just have or invest large amounts of money. One has to score enough points from a selection grid, which for example requires B2-ish level in French. The language component alone disqualifies most of the people who benefited from the original program and the current prospective applicants.

https://www.quebec.ca/en/immigration/immigrate-business/inve...

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#48

Post by vlovich123 »

sokoloff wrote: post #35
jleyank wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s a fine investment in a diversified portfolio because traditionally it was a hedge in both capital and monthly cash flow, and decoupled from other asset classes. It also offered freedom where you can make improvements to the land to increase the rate of growth. There were also non-monetary investments because your lifestyle choices had certain kinds of freedoms it offered (in exchange for giving up others)

So it’s definitely a good investment when it’s affordable. In current environments, it’s actually less of a good investment than how it used to be used (stable, inflation-protected hedge) because it’s more in the asset class of stock and intertwined with other asset classes. That’s good for you on the upswing (which is why you think it’s incompatible with affordability) but not so good on the downswing. Also high volatility and even rapid growth isn’t something most people look for in housing and housing-related costs. In other words, people now treat housing stock the same way as company stock which does make it incompatible with affordability but it’s traditional role is a hedge in your portfolio.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#49

Post by tromp »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #41
dylan604 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

I mean, China is pretty good at creating land.

The Dutch excel at creating land where before there was sea...

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#50

Post by runnerup »

kennend3 wrote: post #17
pestatije wrote: post #7

In Spain they'll give a residency permit to foreigners buying a home over 500k euros.

This is where Canada's new law gets really weird. We also have an "investment" class visa and almost everyone who has used this bought a house to meet the "minimum requirements" https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=653... So.. earlier they encouraged foreigners to buy houses in order to get PR cards, now they ban it??

>> So.. earlier they encouraged foreigners to buy houses in order to get PR cards, now they ban it??

Yes, because at one point they thought they had enough property and could use more money. Either they were wrong or at some point that changed, and now they’ve reacted in acknowledgment that Canadians need local property more than they need foreign cash.

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