> 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 wouldn't be such a good investment if the supply wasn't constrained. If you want do devalue the dollar, print more. If you want to devalue the housing market, make it legal to build more.
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.
> current housing prices are way off their peak from a year ago
The only policy that impacted this was the Bank of Canada’s interest rate policy. Houses were rocketing up right until the moment rates started increasing.
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??
Canada's Immigrant Investor visa program was canceled in 2014. This new law has nothing to do with visa applications and is intended to address foreign speculation in local housing markets.
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.
Its a practical not a philosophical discussion. Try driving through the western united states and see if a lack of land is a real issue.
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.…
As a Canadian, Canada needs way more people for how much habitable land we have.
I 100% concur. Canada would benefit by having a population 2-3x current. I am always amazed how in the US there are so many cities with vibrant cultures in the 50-80k range whereas in Canada you can drive vast distances and only find tiny settlements of a few thousand people and no services or culture to speak of.
One good rule of thumb is that whenever people are blaming foreigners for their problems, they're wrong. Investment in housing and price increases are related. But it's the price increases that cause the investments, not the other way around.
i don't think there's too many people (or at least, people making these decisions) who think foreign ownership is the real problem here. it's just the portion of the problem that's politically easiest to tackle.
banning foreign ownership will help, even if only a little bit.
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.
Land seems like one of the oldest and most "natural" forms of ownership -- Many animals, plants, bacteria, fungi will establish territory and defend it against conspecfics and competitors
They aren't defending land though, they are really defending access to resources contained in that land. If you drop a plant on empty land with no relevant resources for it, the plant will die. It will not become a landowner. Land ownership is a very recent concept in our history. Most of human history on this planet happened with no concept of owning land.
One good rule of thumb is that whenever people are blaming foreigners for their problems, they're wrong. Investment in housing and price increases are related. But it's the price increases that cause the investments, not the other way around.
Luckily you can depress prices really quickly by forbidding sales of property :)
The value of housing comes from how much you can charge people who want to live in them.
That number doesn't change because foreigners can't buy.
This seems like a good idea and it carves out exceptions for foreigners who are residents. I presume this puts pressure on other countries to do the same, since investors are looking for other opportunities.
It is important to note that according to Canadian law, permanent residents (equivalent to green card holders in the US) are not considered foreign nationals. They enjoy roughly the same rights and privileges as Canadian citizens, with very limited exceptions such as voting, running for office, serving as a jury, and some high-level government positions. > Foreign national: A person who is not a Canadian citizen or a…
However the law does seem to exclude people who reside in Canada on a work permit, many of whom are accruing time to apply for PR status. Since those who reside in Canada on a temporary work permit pay income taxes, it seems unjust to limit their housing choices. Ideally the law could have been worded with more specificity around prohibition of income generation by the property and still allow work permit holders to buy property.