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Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#471

Post by scarface74 »

medvezhenok wrote: post #465
scarface74 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sold my investment properties over a decade ago. But you didn’t answer the questions. Should everyone who wants to live in a house be forced to buy no matter what stage of life they are in? What shouid the people do who can’t afford to buy?

I don't think everyone should be forced to buy - I think that the tax code should be changed in order to not favor buying so heavily over renting. A few ideas to start 1) Get rid of the mortgage interest deduction 2) Tax imputed rent same way that rent payments are taxed (so you would have to pay tax on the money you would have paid to rent from yourself) 3) Get rid of capital gains exemption ($250K per person, 500K…

> Get rid of the mortgage interest deduction

Just a useless talking point. Especially with the changes in the tax law, the standard deduction is so high, most people don’t take advantage of the interest tax deduction.

https://smartasset.com/taxes/how-did-the-trump-tax-bill-affe...

> Tax imputed rent same way that rent payments are taxed (so you would have to pay tax on the money you would have paid to rent from yourself)

So now increasing taxes are going to help make houses more affordable?

And if you do that, and want to start treating home ownership as if you are renting from yourself at “market rate”, you are now back to also allowing deductions from ownership as you would if you were a landlord - interest deduction, expenses, deductions for depreciation where you can depreciate the cost of your house over 17 years, etc

> Get rid of capital gains exemption ($250K per person, 500K for married couples)

If you make it more punitive to sell, less people are going to be willing to sell their house when they outgrow it. That makes for less housing to come onto the market.

> That's what should be fixed. Don't push everyone to buy a home

So now you want more landlords?

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#472

Post by AtlasBarfed »

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:…

Let's say, for the sake of argument, there is some city called Fan Sanfrisco.

In this city, all the people that own houses are worth at least a million dollars, because they have a house that's worth that.

Now, a bunch of uppity kids want to build a TON of housing. What's that going to do to your property values based on supply and demand?

Oh right, it's going to drop.

Doesn't matter if you are a republican or democrat, if you're a home owner you defend your home values. When they say "all politics is local" THIS is what it means.

A property value drop means:

1) you are underwater in your mortgage (for newer buyers)

2) you are losing a lot of your retirement savings (for older voters, and boy howdy do they like to vote and protest)

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#473

Post by Psychoshy_bc1q »

dionidium wrote: post #287
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looking at Asia now is like what the west used to be like. There is a huge property bubble in China, so I'm not sure if that is good example for us to follow. Japan is a better model, where a declining population and weariness of a huge real estate bubble that popped in the late 80s has made investing property not very feasible.

Property "bubbles" only matter when housing is scarce and therefore treated as an investment. We all understand why the recent run-up in used car prices was bad for most people, even if it meant that the people who owned a car enjoyed a sudden spike in the value of that "asset." We don't want the things we buy to be more expensive. We want them to be less expensive. Falling prices are good .

bitcoin fixes this

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#474

Post by mancerayder »

Terretta wrote: post #438
bboygravity wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also the city would turn into a horrible place to live with tons of pollution and congestion. Similar to large Asian cities where you can barely breathe, the noise is unbearable and it's a mission to get from one part of the city to another. Nevermind issues like "can our sewage pipes handle it?".

Like the entirely 5 story multi-family residential-over-retail filled Paris, France? In the US, these manifest as so-called 5-over-1 and it's entirely possible to build the same model of work-life balanced neighborhoods using that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1

Paris is definitely not a place where you can point to an example of abundant, affordable housing. Are you kidding me? Adjusted for wages, Paris purchase prices are more unaffordable than London or New York.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#475

Post by rowanG077 »

Terretta wrote: post #438
bboygravity wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also the city would turn into a horrible place to live with tons of pollution and congestion. Similar to large Asian cities where you can barely breathe, the noise is unbearable and it's a mission to get from one part of the city to another. Nevermind issues like "can our sewage pipes handle it?".

Like the entirely 5 story multi-family residential-over-retail filled Paris, France? In the US, these manifest as so-called 5-over-1 and it's entirely possible to build the same model of work-life balanced neighborhoods using that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1

Yes exactly. Paris is honestly one of the greatest shitholes in the EU.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#477

Post by llampx »

dionidium wrote: post #284
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…

> There seems to be a general lack of political will for big projects in the west. The spectacular thing about the housing crisis is that you don't even need any big government projects. It just needs to be legal for private actors to build housing. On most plots of land today it is not legal to build anything but a single-family home, so cities are no longer able to naturally densify over time (just like every singl…

I want to believe this, but my personal experience shows the opposite. I live in Berlin, and there's a severe housing shortage, even though Berlin is very big geographically, and 5 story buildings are the norm, many even as mixed-use.

Why is this? Because there's a strong inflow from all over the world and not enough building. Meanwhile prices are going up without regard to incomes, and it is incredibly hard to get even a viewing, let alone be offered an apartment. On top of that, most of the stock is old and not modernized at all.

Even for private owners, it is better to not build and let scarcity drive the price of their investments higher, than to take the risk of building and potentially see rents or prices fall.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#478

Post by tshaddox »

stoppingin wrote: post #405
dionidium wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a plethora of totally valid reasons why people would be opposed to endless urban sprawl, consolidation, and population growth. There really aren't, though, in the sense that the costs (both societal and individual) drastically outweigh the benefits. Of course prohibitions on new construction are narrowly beneficial to specific individuals. Who wants some guys starting up new construction at 7AM next door?…

Everything in your post is just your own personal opinion. > The problem is that these individual preferences come with enormous costs, both economic and with respect to individual freedom... What if I don't agree with increasing the population? If I don't want to increase the number of people in the city I'm living in, then why on earth would I want urban consolidation? Does anyone actually enjoy living in a tiny ap…

> What if I don't agree with increasing the population? If I don't want to increase the number of people in the city I'm living in, then why on earth would I want urban consolidation?

I’m not sure what kind of answer you’re looking for with those “what if” questions. What if you preferred that the human race go extinct? I suppose the answer to all of these “what if” questions is simply that other people will disagree with you and oppose you in various ways.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#479

Post by zaphirplane »

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:…

Perhaps because like everything that appears simple it’s complicated. Having a large number of new dwelling requires an infrastructure to support the people. The growth in housing rate needs to match the rate of infra growth

A large influx of properties will affect the property market which will affect the industries that affect the housing industry and the consumer confidence and wipe out retirement funds

With all due respect and not in anyway being rude, Is this fundamentally different from Saying let’s print more money and give it away to people (directly or indirectly)

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#480

Post by robocat »

QIYGT wrote: post #337
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…

> There seems to be a general lack of political will for big projects in the west. We don't need big projects. If popular US cities like Seattle and San Francisco simply allowed people to build 5-story apartment buildings in all the space that's currently set aside for single-family detached homes, you'd see people building millions of small projects to easily meet the demand.

> you'd see people building millions of small projects to easily meet the demand

On that theory, New York should have insanely cheap apartments due to lack of demand.

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