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Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#91
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By definition it will. Fewer potential buyers always means lower top prices. Especially in this case, where the whole point is to prevent rich foreigners from outbidding poor locals.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#92
post #76

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 :)

A lot of other cool things happen when you do that too.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#93
post #66
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its really not a step in the right direction. Imo its even a bit into the wrong direction because they are opting to sidestep the vastly easier step that would actually solve this problem for good: updating the zoning to keep up with job growth. Blaming foreign investors for today's home prices is like blaming the boogyman, because its zoning that explains everything about today's home prices and its the zoning creat…

Update zoning? Humans are breeding creatures. Like all animals, they will reproduce to fill their available habitat and back pressure is needed to keep the population from strangling this planet.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#94

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.

Sure, they should blame their government instead -- which allowed those foreigners to cause the problems, instead of protecting the citizens they are meant to serve.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#95

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.

Owning land makes a lot of sense, I'd say. What doesn't make much sense to me is subjecting it to so much speculation

It makes poor sense because landowners are often selfish, and choose use cases with their property that maximize personal benefit and if there is a collective benefit to these decisions it is a happy accident. I'm including local species into the collective in this case. Often a landowner will put up barriers (e.g. a fence around a sprawling ranch or a beltway of roads around a suburban development) for species or will introduce invasive species or otherwise lower the biodiversity of a place through disruptive development.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#96
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.…

As a Canadian, Canada needs way more people for how much habitable land we have.

We don't have 'much habitable land'. Most of the 'land' is literally a rock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#97
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you mean? Foreigners can't buy therefore it will decrease the number of people trying to buy there

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#98

If you think this law will be easy to sidestep, please read this post first: https://old.reddit.com/r/canadahousing/comments/zz92li/prohi... It appears that the law is well-designed to avoid such abuses and loopholes. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1494/

> "The ban doesn't apply to properties with 4 units or more" - good. If the goal is to allow single family homes and duplexes, condos, etc. to drop in price, it's providing aid in the right place. The goal wasn't to make life easier for people buying investment properties.

This seems like a massive gap though, and the counterargument doesn't make sense. Surely high-density housing is (should be) cheaper than the alternatives, and provides fine homes for many people who can't afford/don't want a suburban single family home with all the expenses that entails? (Car, maintenance, etc.)

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#99
post #93
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its really not a step in the right direction. Imo its even a bit into the wrong direction because they are opting to sidestep the vastly easier step that would actually solve this problem for good: updating the zoning to keep up with job growth. Blaming foreign investors for today's home prices is like blaming the boogyman, because its zoning that explains everything about today's home prices and its the zoning creat…

Update zoning? Humans are breeding creatures. Like all animals, they will reproduce to fill their available habitat and back pressure is needed to keep the population from strangling this planet.

No one looks up the zoning code before having kids. Zoning is also not related to the carrying capacity of an environment, usually its decided by busybodies who actively ignore the literature on the subject in favor of perpetuating a status quo.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#100
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By definition it will. Fewer potential buyers always means lower top prices. Especially in this case, where the whole point is to prevent rich foreigners from outbidding poor locals.

No.

Owning housing produces a certain income for the owner. Either as the rent you can charge from tenants, or increase in the resale price. Both depend on the local supply/demand situation.

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