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Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#391

Post by [deleted] »

RestlessMind wrote: post #263
Negitivefrags wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a general lack of political will for big projects in the west. Looking at Asia now is like what the west used to be like. I am unsure about the cause but I suspect that a lot of it is that people seem a lot more worried about consultation with locals and such. In the past the government might just decide “we are building a highway here” or “we are building all this infrastructure for houses there” a…

Decades ago when the West was developed, there was very little value placed on the existing stuff. Five people died constructing the Empire State building. Do you imagine the uproar if that happens today? I bet human life was valued much less back then. Similarly, lots of neighborhoods were erased to make way for highways, railroads and industrial plants. Nowadays, try constructing an industrial plant in a major city…

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#392

Post by steele »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #219
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:…

There seems to be a general lack of political will for big projects in the west. Looking at Asia now is like what the west used to be like. I am unsure about the cause but I suspect that a lot of it is that people seem a lot more worried about consultation with locals and such. In the past the government might just decide “we are building a highway here” or “we are building all this infrastructure for houses there” a…

"West" and "Asia" is an overgeneralization. Just say the countries you have in mind to not seem ignorant.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#393

Post by dsfyu404ed »

themitigating wrote: post #289
RestlessMind wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decades ago when the West was developed, there was very little value placed on the existing stuff. Five people died constructing the Empire State building. Do you imagine the uproar if that happens today? I bet human life was valued much less back then. Similarly, lots of neighborhoods were erased to make way for highways, railroads and industrial plants. Nowadays, try constructing an industrial plant in a major city…

Of course all cities should strive to be like Houston, a city surrounded and intersected by highways. The lower part of Manhattan would have had a highway through it but instead it'sa cultural epicenter ( https://untappedcities.com/2013/09/11/nyc-that-never-was-rob... )

If the highway were there the cultural epicenter would just be elsewhere. It doesn’t really matter where your infrastructure is. You need X infrastructure for Y people and development will naturally happen to take advantage of it.

In Boston they did the reverse of your example. They took a subway and moved it in to fill the void where a highway was supposed to go before it got cancelled. If they hadn’t cancelled the highway that subway would still be where it used to be. As an aside, the people who cancelled it really have a lot of blood on their hands because a bunch of major surface streets got developed into main thoroughfares as a result and we all know how good it is to have a highway speed road that isn’t grade separated from cross streets, pedestrians and cyclists…

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#395

Post by cpufry »

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.

it's tough to engage with this kinda stuff i feel like, its either disingenuous or delusional. the brain rot is somewhere else, this is just a symptom.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#396

Post by maeil »

bamboozled wrote: post #241
themagician wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of answers, but they all stem from one core answer: Because governments do not want to fix it, because those with wealth (largely) do not see it as a problem. Three generations of people (silent, boomers, and gen x) were told that real estate was the best investment they could make for their ENTIRE LIFE. Millennials also heard this growing up. In the US we even took extra steps to make sure that homeo…

Except we know they can't and won't go up forever in those countries as they mostly have a declining birth rate, a long with many other countries. So going to be a fun crash?

South Korea might be the country to watch. In Korea too, for many decades people have been sold on the dream that homes will always be a fantastic, high-return investment. But the lowest birthrate in the world means the population already shrunk last year. Covid will have played a part by causing excess deaths but those were quite low in Korea. Adversion to immigration as a potential solution is even higher than in the US and this seems very unlikely to change as well. It will be interesting to see what happens to the housing market giving the extremely rapid aging of the population that is already happening.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#397

Post by philliphaydon »

chii wrote: post #373
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…

> How to you do that when you cannot get a loan to buy the same house? How is it fair? if they cannot get a loan to buy a yacht, or a lambo, how come you don't make the same argument? Owning a house is not some natural right. Being able to afford shelter is, and renting accomplishes that. If rent is skyrocketing, then there's a problem and the gov't needs to address it. But rents have not grown in relation to the cos…

> if they cannot get a loan to buy a yacht, or a lambo, how come you don't make the same argument?

> Owning a house is not some natural right. Being able to afford shelter is, and renting accomplishes that. If rent is skyrocketing, then there's a problem and the gov't needs to address it. But rents have not grown in relation to the cost of the house - in fact, rent is cheaper in most cases.

Its in your best interest for someone to own their own property. Owning property is one of the key aspects of retirement. If people have no money or property at retirement then you end up as a tax payer, paying for the persons retirement. That causes you to need to have higher taxes to fund peoples retirements.

Owning property is also a safety net, if you lose your job, atleast you have a roof over your head. If not, well, youre gonna pay for it as a tax payer by giving the person the benefit or dole.

> i dont know if you've been misinformed, but foreign buyers haven't been a problem in australia (and NZ and canada) for a while - ever since 2018-2019. Most of the demand for real estate are from locals. Using foreigners is a scapegoat.

Just because after 2018 they didn't influence prices doesn't mean the market didn't get inflated because of them. I've met people in Singapore who are not PR or Citizen in Australia who own property in Australia and just rent it out to make more money. I've met 1 person from China who owns multiple properties in NZ and AU. Who had holidayed in AU but never been to NZ.

------------

The main problem here is people don't want to pay taxes, but want the government to bail them out at every possible road block. They want the government to protect them when it suits them, but 'fix' it if it suits someone else but not them.

So if you remove the government then you need property ownership to go up, if you want more government involvement, you need higher taxes and more rentals at lower costs.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#398

Post by philliphaydon »

scarface74 wrote: post #345
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…

> It's built for sale, not built for rental. Why is there such an emphasis on ownership ? Yes I’ve owned five properties - two to live in permanently, one to live in half the year (the other half we travel), and two investment properties. The tenants I had in my rental properties were in no position to buy a home or for that matter to rent a whole house. I rented by the room. I actively discourage young people from b…

You kinda prove my point, you rent out a room, you can afford a high mortgage repayment and combined income from your rentals covers mortgage payments.

Preventing anyone from ever owning a home. Mortgage payments should be less than rental payments.

Also not EVERYONE will be able to afford homes. But when the middle class are priced out of owning a home, as is the issue, thats a problem.

Edit: you also seem to ignore that house prices have sky rocketed while income hasn’t. So thank you for contributing to the housing issue that causes young people to not be able to afford a home.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#399

Post by dsfyu404ed »

seattle_spring wrote: post #223
plantain wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A full half of the voting base, or more, fervently vote against their own best interest. Seems like it’s happening in Europe and has taken deep roots in places like Brazil, too. People can’t really be surprised that bad things are happening when they explicitly vote for bad things to happen.

Surely you’re talking about all those wealthy HNers who vote for higher taxes on themselves.

Why is it that when some people vote for their principles but against their wallet it’s a good thing but when others do it it’s a bad thing?

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#400

Post by stoppingin »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #353
stoppingin wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for taking the time to make a nice reply, and for not taking my criticism of your post personally. I really appreciate that. I feel like you have a very arbitrary definition of NIMBY. I'm writing this post right now from the 14th floor of a highrise building in Sydney's inner city, in the apartment I rent from a landlord who lives in mainland China. There are still rows of historic terrace houses in the nea…

> a very arbitrary definition of NIMBY NIMBY means not in my backyard. As in, I want the benefits of a thing but not its cost. Wanting affordable housing while denying development is NIMBY. Saying no development because you want higher property prices is not NIMBY, it's prohibitionism. (Depending on the environment, it could be reasonable and/or heartless.) > been told by people who would know that one of Sydney's bi…

> This is prudent pipeline management...

Doesn't this contradict your central thesis? If the supply of housing doesn't exceed the demand, the price isn't going to drop. How can urban consolidation actually benefit the renter class if property developers are able to artificially increase the value by restricting supply until mechanisms like immigration cause demand to catch up?

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