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Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#541

Post by wkat4242 »

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:…

In Holland we're seeing that we've made such a mess of environmental (nitrogen in particular) and neighbor objection laws (NIMBY) that evening just takes so extremely long to proceed if it does at all. And these are all artificial hurdles.

Sure the environment is important but people need a place to live and this crisis is totally out of control.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#542

Post by wkat4242 »

bboygravity wrote: post #436
QIYGT wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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?".

On the contrary. Those densities would make for excellent public transport opportunities so not everyone would need a car.

I live in Barcelona that's mostly 5 or so levels and I haven't driven a car in 4 years and I love it.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#543

Post by djg321 »

robocat wrote: post #480
QIYGT wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The difference is that the Bay Area apartments would be new initially vacant apartments that could compete with existing apartments.

New York already has had high density for a century+, but has not been adding apartments at a rate that would match population growth (and income growth) for decades.

In the Bay example, presumably if the new apartments were a one off, prices would initially come down, but would then start to rise again as more people move in and add to demand.

The solution would be to continuously add sufficient new apartments to match population growth (which could be done by liberally allowing builders to build more density to meet demand).

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#545

Post by jasmer »

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:…

Central planning caused the problem so central planning will fix it?

I think this is upside down.

Canada has a migration policy completely at odds with reality, and, foreign home ownership as a form of international export which is a deeply corrosive to civil life.

There is a much easier way to solve the problem and that is to limit the externalisations.

Migration returned to normal levels (and 'normal' for Canada is still higher than most other places) and a total ban on foreign ownership of residential policy that should have been enacted 30 years ago.

As the world 'globalises' things like 'homes' in wealthy, well-run countries become global commodities, which is extremely bad for the population - they need to be removed from that context. FYI we might be able to sell foreign investors something else. Or - we could introduce a heavy foreign ownership tax that made the situation actually net beneficial to Canada as a whole to make more of a 'win-win'. If foreign entities want money to be in something 'safe' we should be able to provide that.

On the migration side, since half of the Canadian migration policy is oriented around goodwill and helping others, Canada should probably seek to export the one and only real thing Canadians do well and that is consistent, b-grade governance: nothing is done very well, but almost everything is done 'well enough' and that creates some very prosperous conditions. I think there is a ton of good that could possibly be done, especially in places like the Caribbean with some deeper economic and social integration. And win-win economic outcomes as well, aka 'money to be made', a bit of prosperity and surplus for everyone if we can just get things working bit more consistently.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#546

Post by alvah »

Valakas_ wrote: post #520
alvah wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultra-high tax rates during WWII, when governments used tax to raise the money they needed, may have made sense. Ultra-high tax rates in an unbacked fiat currency world are purely an attempt to punish the ultra-rich (which ends up punishing the upper-middle class as the ultra-rich can afford to either package their income or escape to a lower-tax jurisdiction). In an unbacked fiat currency world, income tax rates are…

What do you mean by "escape to a lower-tax jurisdiction"? Isn't it ok that the ultra-rich should be forced to go live in 2nd/3rd world countries if they want to escape tax?

is (e.g.) Monaco a 2nd- or 3rd-world country (or principality)?

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#547

Post by pas »

robocat wrote: post #480
QIYGT wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's misrepresentation of the theory.

Which is roughly "new units decrease price if there's excess demand". Which is the classic microeconomics theory of how the price point shifts due as the increased supply sets a new equilibrium.

some pretty graphs:

https://mobile.twitter.com/georgiststeve/status/159813526427...

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#548

Post by alvah »

rcarr wrote: post #502
alvah wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultra-high tax rates during WWII, when governments used tax to raise the money they needed, may have made sense. Ultra-high tax rates in an unbacked fiat currency world are purely an attempt to punish the ultra-rich (which ends up punishing the upper-middle class as the ultra-rich can afford to either package their income or escape to a lower-tax jurisdiction). In an unbacked fiat currency world, income tax rates are…

So what is your suggestion then, to punish the poor some more? Is there not enough homeless on the streets of San Francisco for you? Are the slums of Bombay too small in scope? As I said in the comment it would be very difficult or perhaps impossible to achieve and the dangers are high (you don’t want a USSR situation happening). You might even need coordinated effort across multiple governments and there is evidence…

It's a very complex topic, which sadly I don't have time to delve deeply into at the moment. My intent with the previous comment was only to point out a fairly large flaw in the "tax the rich" argument as previously implemented, not to suggest that the actual ultra-wealthy shouldn't pay more than they are currently.

In theory there are steps that could be taken to fix the massively broken housing market in most of the Western world. Unfortunately the vested interests and massive financial house of cards built on top of property prices make these steps politically impossible. Therefore, what can't continue forever (unsustainable house prices) will not continue forever, but it will end messily & at some unpredictable future time.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#549

Post by alvah »

rcarr wrote: post #502
alvah wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultra-high tax rates during WWII, when governments used tax to raise the money they needed, may have made sense. Ultra-high tax rates in an unbacked fiat currency world are purely an attempt to punish the ultra-rich (which ends up punishing the upper-middle class as the ultra-rich can afford to either package their income or escape to a lower-tax jurisdiction). In an unbacked fiat currency world, income tax rates are…

So what is your suggestion then, to punish the poor some more? Is there not enough homeless on the streets of San Francisco for you? Are the slums of Bombay too small in scope? As I said in the comment it would be very difficult or perhaps impossible to achieve and the dangers are high (you don’t want a USSR situation happening). You might even need coordinated effort across multiple governments and there is evidence…

Also, "A couple of short, sharp years at 90% and all of it invested into major, physical public infrastructure projects to create jobs and filter the money down."

I'll go out on a limb & guess you weren't in the UK in the 1970s...

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#550

Post by Auracle »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #282
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…

> 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.

I’ve gotten downvoted for mentioning this on HN before but I’ll say it again - all we would need to do to largely stabilize housing prices would be to secure our borders. Our population growth is largely due to immigration, and right now we’re letting in over a million immigrants a year who will statistically have more children than the people that are already here.
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