Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

voanews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 619 posts

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#381

Post by scarface74 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #369
scarface74 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's MUCH harder to buy an empty lot, and get a loan from a bank to build a house on that lot now. No it’s not https://www.lendingtree.com/home/fha/getting-an-fha-construc...

While getting FHA 203(k) might be easy, the details are a pain in the ass. I got one to get a new roof on my first house. Imagine all the usual shitty mis-communication and last-minute paperwork of dealing with a mortgage agent... plus last-minute fun with contractors, who are used to answering on a very different schedule. E.g. "Oh, I need 2 more competitive quotes for the same work in the next 2 days, even though y…

Opposite anecdote: I walked into a model home, talked to the builder, chose a plot of land in the community, chose a floor plan with the options I wanted and had a brand new house built on it within 6 months.

I did that twice…

Both times in metro Atlanta.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#382

Post by philliphaydon »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #363
philliphaydon wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reasons we don’t have enough homes is because governments have made it illegal to build enough new homes to meet demand. > You are essentially say that the presence of car collectors leads to car shortages. The price of a old car, a new car, a cheap car, and an expensive luxuary car, all vary greatly. Cars are more or less open for purchase by everyone. Houses a fixed in a location, you cannot pick it up and mo…

Your’e confused about this specific conversation and the US housing market in general. I read your post several times, and can’t make heads or tails of what you’re trying to say. Sorry. I will make one point: in the US, it’s never been the government’s job to build homes. That’s always been left primarily to the private sector. Right now however, governments won’t allow the private sector to build enough homes. They’…

The US obviously has its own problems, and I absolutely don't know the US market well enough. My comments are based around canada banning foreigners from buying homes and my knowledge on similar issues in NZ/AU.

The US however is a huge plot of land with varying housing prices across the country, even if you had foreigners buying properties, it doesn't have the same impact on the country as it does in NZ/AU/Canada.

Populations:

Canada: 38m

Australia: 25m

New Zealand: 5m

US: 332m

The impact hurts us more than the US.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#383

Post by seanmcdirmid »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #370
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many SFH's here in Seattle are being torn down to build multiple 3 story town homes with no yards and rooftop decks (I live in one). They still go for a million, but there are plenty of people here with that purchasing power to buy them. Still cheaper than a 2 bedroom apartment in Beijing.

Yep, tell me about. Part of the reason is that the market is still out of whack from decades of under-building. However, the bigger reason is that new homes have always been relatively expensive. The construction costs have to be immediately recouped for one thing, and they’re often located in more desirable areas. The beauty of new homes is that they give the Amazon tech bro something to buy instead of coming into y…

> Part of the reason is that the market is still out of whack from decades of under-building.

In the USA, anyways, many people left the home construction industry after the 2008 crash, and didn't come back when things picked up again. That means...no apprentices were trained up, experience was lost, etc...so labor costs have shot through the roof because experience is quite limited.

And try even renovating an old home! You get quotes of like $150k just to do a kitchen.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#384

Post by seanmcdirmid »

xvilka wrote: post #378
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokyo doesn't have many high rises. Shanghai has lots of high rises; well, they are mostly 30 story apartment buildings that can be reliably built with concrete and unskilled labor. Yet, there is a lot of speculation market in the China so prices are still high even if supply expands (and many apartments are empty because they are just being used as speculative investments). One of the reason I didn't look at Shangha…

> Tokyo doesn't have many high rises. Right, but only because of the seismic activity, from what I know. In most other places that wouldn't be an issue. Nevertheless, Tokio is still relatively dense with tightly packed mid-rises, and actively building.

Tokyo is dense with mid-rises, they also have a lot of 2-3 story SFHs packed closely together with no yards.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#385

Post by snerbles »

lazide wrote: post #366
BenFranklin100 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons we don’t have enough homes is because governments have made it illegal to build enough new homes to meet demand. You are essentially say that the presence of car collectors leads to car shortages.

Car collectors don’t turn around and rent cars. Thought car rental companies do - and they definitely impact prices for vehicles.

Some car collectors absolutely do rent out their vintage cars, for a variety of purposes including film, ad shoots, events, etc.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#386

Post by areyousure »

LarryMullins wrote: post #319
amake wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's the joke

Oh, I thought he was being sincere. Canada's population is mostly crowded into a small part of Canada, something like 2/3rds of the country live south of the 49th Parallel (south of long straight part of the US/Canada border), and in this region the population density is quite high. They do have a ton of land in all the rest of Canada, but for reasons of access to services, climate, etc.. most people in Canada are cr…

In case anyone is curious, southern Ontario is quite south of the 49th parallel and includes Canada's biggest city.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ontario

The population of southern Ontario is ~13.5 million people (roughly a third of Canada).

North Korea has a similar area (slightly larger), but approximately twice the population. South Korea also has a similar area (slightly smaller), but approximately twice the population of North Korea = four times the population of southern Ontario.

In particular, ~13.5 million more people live in South Korea (which has an area smaller than southern Ontario) than in the entirety of Canada.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#387

Post by qualudeheart »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #303
philliphaydon wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because today houses are not for living in. They are investments. There's multiple issues that need solving now. 1) Being able to purchase a house without ever setting foot in the country. NZ decided to stop foreigners buying houses. There were websites you can go in and people from China would buy houses without ever setting foot in NZ... The buying power of alot of people from China and India is huge. This drives u…

The reasons we don’t have enough homes is because governments have made it illegal to build enough new homes to meet demand. You are essentially say that the presence of car collectors leads to car shortages.

Care are not investments, however classic cars can fetch high prices with collectors. Housing has become an investment as many of us have discovered the hard way. The government can address the housing crisis by building new housing at scale together with regulations to prevent speculation.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#388

Post by BenFranklin100 »

philliphaydon wrote: post #382
BenFranklin100 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your’e confused about this specific conversation and the US housing market in general. I read your post several times, and can’t make heads or tails of what you’re trying to say. Sorry. I will make one point: in the US, it’s never been the government’s job to build homes. That’s always been left primarily to the private sector. Right now however, governments won’t allow the private sector to build enough homes. They’…

The US obviously has its own problems, and I absolutely don't know the US market well enough. My comments are based around canada banning foreigners from buying homes and my knowledge on similar issues in NZ/AU. The US however is a huge plot of land with varying housing prices across the country, even if you had foreigners buying properties, it doesn't have the same impact on the country as it does in NZ/AU/Canada. P…

Yes, I agree that NZ’s much smaller size makes it a more challenging case. NZ will be more affected in the short term by large swings in demand from foreign buyers.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#390

Post by Bukhmanizer »

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…

So what you saw was empty high rises. Everything you’ve said about foreign investors is pure speculation.

This is what drives me crazy about this story. The vast, vast majority of evidence suggests that the problem is with domestic investors. But because of a nice little story, suddenly it’s foreigners who are the problem.

Post reply on HN