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Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#181

Post by smnrchrds »

revolvingocelot wrote: post #173
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a short law. Right after the section you quote is this: "If a non-Canadian is convicted of having contravened section 4, the superior court of the province in which the residential property to which the contravention relates is situated may, on application of the Minister, order the residential property to be sold in the prescribed manner and under prescribed conditions."

Mine was a short comment, and I actually address the point you raise, but I'll recapitulate it. Namely, if one is a foreigner caught buying a Canadian residential property, one is certain to pay $10,000, but may be forced to sell it, if the Minister and provincial superior court can be bothered. IANAL, but between the two sections we've excerpted, and the already-posted, short law, it doesn't seem particularly well-d…

> if the Minister and provincial superior court can be bothered.

I know that for immigration and citizenship cases, officers at the border are called minister's delegates in certain contexts: they do things that the law authorizes the minister of immigration to do.

It's not like the minister has to get personally involved. It just means the ministry is in charge of referring cases to the court, so they will create an office and hire a bunch of bureaucrats to do this.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#182

Post by monocasa »

plantain wrote: post #154
pxue wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply is artificially controlled by voters who don't want density to increase, masked behind preservations, environmental concerns or just plain corruption

What changed? Governments used to aggressively intervene in the housing market.

Monetary policy that made housing most people's largest investment, meaning a lot of votes that care.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#183

Post by fatbird »

dan-robertson wrote: post #133
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One good rule of thumb is that whenever people are blaming foreigners for their problems, they're wrong. Another good rule of thumb is to not dismiss issues just because they don't fit an over-generalized idea of how all situations must work. The housing situation in Canada is weird . I visited a friend who lived in a high rise and barely saw anyone else come and go from the building the entire week I was there. Fr…

Stupid question, but how did you tell that they had been purchased by foreign investors?

You have to show proof of citizenship and residency during conveyance. When my wife and I recently bought, our driver licences and passports were recorded by the lawyer, pretty much just to tackle this issue.

A foreign investor would need to arrange for straw purchasers to avoid the law, but that in itself would be an act of consciousness of guilt for breaking this law.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#184

Post by LAC-Tech »

They tried this in NZ too; it did nothing. Canada - Like New Zealand, and like Australia - relies on simply increasing the population through mass migration to "grow" the economy. This benefits enough powerful people that it will never stop for the sake of mere renters.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#185

Post by fatbird »

mavelikara wrote: post #174
twobitshifter wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said they're priced out. This means interested but without the wealth to outspend foreigners.

I was asking about the rich people in his county, who don't currently live in the mountain town.

In Canada, the vast majority of rich foreigners buying property are American. Chinese investors, the favourite villain of the "rich foreigners" class, make up only about 4% of foreign real estate investment.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#186

Post by bamboozled »

mavelikara wrote: post #178
bamboozled wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to name countries but they’re buyers from a country where people have a lot of disposable cash, where I live people don’t have that kind of money, that’s why. The property taxes are a flat rate for everyone who lives here. This is to be fair everyone I guess. Anyway, whatever the tax is, it’s easy for the people with money to pay it, it’s not a disincentive. Property tax and income tax are different thin…

Are the people who sold their houses to these foreigners at a high prices still in the community? Didn't you benefit from the taxes their windfall transaction generated?

Like I said in my previous post...

There is a middle man, a foreigner who is not from this area, who is paying the locals little money, through coercion, dishonesty, taking advantage of kindness etc.

He is also paying locals off to convince other locals, mostly elderly people to sell their places at a fairly low price, they're elderly and mostly just kind people who don't think about what's going on. They lie and tell them stories about why they need the property over others with less money.

This sounds bad too, but there is a mentality with the locals that foreign people are nice, special, and they try to help them...I don't quite understand it but it exists.

There is one other very important and interesting dynamic at play here which is this: Local people, are ashamed to leave the community, like they're letting the place down. Sometimes though, they know it would be best / easier if they left to be closer to hospitals etc. These people doing the property deals know this and they offer them confidentiality. Like, "if you come to me, and sell to me directly, I won't tell anyone anything". While this in itself sounds like almost a good service, it has one significant drawback for the seller, there is zero transparency on how much money they "could" be getting.

Didn't you benefit from the taxes their windfall transaction generated?

I'd say not really enough to matter, it's a once off payment, and honestly, what I think they're doing is, the "middle man" buys the house at say $50,000 USD, then sells it for the same, but they do the rest of the transaction off shore using "gift money" or other schemes to avoid the taxes.

Honestly it's a total racket, the "middle man" is your classic rich guy type, lives here with security, priceless paintings, smokes cigars and drinks expensive whiskey, it's quite hilarious how much of a stereotype he is. I actually don't hate the person, I actually speak with him, he has told me he has had his life threatened before because of his work. People around here often joke about accidentally running the dude over.

Nice job I guess?

I will say that in a lot of cases, the local government could be doing more, so maybe that's why people say there's no point in blaming foreigners, but if they do implement something, apparently it will be "side stepped" according to 99% of Hackernewsers.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#187

Post by dan-robertson »

fatbird wrote: post #183
dan-robertson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid question, but how did you tell that they had been purchased by foreign investors?

You have to show proof of citizenship and residency during conveyance. When my wife and I recently bought, our driver licences and passports were recorded by the lawyer, pretty much just to tackle this issue. A foreign investor would need to arrange for straw purchasers to avoid the law, but that in itself would be an act of consciousness of guilt for breaking this law.

Suppose I’m in the position of the person in comment I replied to above: I look out of my window and see some empty apartments. Some time later, I write on hacker news that they were not for sale but held by foreigners as investments. Are you suggesting that, between these two steps, I would conveyance the sale of one of those apartments and thereby determine that it was bought as an investment property by a foreigner? I’m sure that’s not what you mean but I don’t get what you are suggesting?

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#188

Post by nerdbert »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #118
BurningFrog wrote: post #75

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.

> One good rule of thumb is that whenever people are blaming foreigners for their problems, they're wrong. Another good rule of thumb is to not dismiss issues just because they don't fit an over-generalized idea of how all situations must work. The housing situation in Canada is weird . I visited a friend who lived in a high rise and barely saw anyone else come and go from the building the entire week I was there. Fr…

Sounds like the actual problem is people buying homes and leaving them empty.

Foreigners are just a correlate.

Going after foreigners for this is like banning men from all bars in Canada because of the high correlation between date-rape drug usage and being a man.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#189

Post by stoppingin »

plantain wrote: post #140

I really don't understand why governments around the globe just throw their hands in the air and pretend housing is an unsolvable problem for which they have no obligation to fix. It wasn't always like this - in 1922 in Australia we realised there was a shortage of 25,000 homes, so they just made it happen [1]. Why are we so impotent today? Do we just not care enough? Are the vested interests too powerful? [1] https:…

Sydney's metropolitan area is already oversized. People are already regularly commuting for well over an hour to the city center on congested public transport, or driving on congested roadways. I don't think Melbourne is much different Where would we put 25,000 new homes today?

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#190

Post by revolvingocelot »

smnrchrds wrote: post #181
revolvingocelot wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine was a short comment, and I actually address the point you raise, but I'll recapitulate it. Namely, if one is a foreigner caught buying a Canadian residential property, one is certain to pay $10,000, but may be forced to sell it, if the Minister and provincial superior court can be bothered. IANAL, but between the two sections we've excerpted, and the already-posted, short law, it doesn't seem particularly well-d…

> if the Minister and provincial superior court can be bothered. I know that for immigration and citizenship cases, officers at the border are called minister's delegates in certain contexts: they do things that the law authorizes the minister of immigration to do. It's not like the minister has to get personally involved. It just means the ministry is in charge of referring cases to the court, so they will create an…

Nobody suggested that the Minister had to be personally involved. The point remains that the only certain effect of the law is that every foreign purchase will incur a $10,000 fine. If the overworked courts deign to get involved, the property might have to be sold, again!

Given the government's storied, multilateral, multi-decade unwillingness to do anything about the housing crisis (many MPs and MPPs are landlords!), I just don't see this law as anything but a $10,000 cost of doing business.

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