Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#611

Post by JamisonM » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:17 AM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #422

verdenti wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian, Canada needs way more people for how much habitable land we have.

There's not really that much habitable land in Canada that's not already being used imo. BC for example is pretty much all mountain and has dammed and flooded many of its habitable river valleys. In the Prairies the land is already valuably used to export food across the world. In other parts of Canada it's muskeg and inhospitably cold. The other thing that everyone always forgets about is that all this "free" land o…

In the Prairies you could put a lot of people on farmland and it wouldn't subtract very much productive capacity and would accommodate a lot of people. A square mile is roughly 800mt of grain give or take most years on prime farmland.. the economic value of that vs the sheer number of people you can house on that space with reasonable density, the tradeoff is a non-issue. (That's why developable land on the edge of Winnipeg trades at $25k/ac and the same land 10 miles away is worth 5-6k/ac.)

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#612

Post by JamisonM » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:23 AM UTC

petermcneeley wrote: post #569

JamisonM wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The expectation of the future price of housing for foreign investors is entirely about believing that future construction will be restricted. If investors, foreign or otherwise, believed that housing was a market that responded to market forces in a timely manner they would not invest. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the foreign investors: 1. Believe that their domestic real estate market is overpriced or w…

>upper-middle class Chinese person looking to secure assets outside the purview of the authoritarian government they are forced to live under will pay a premium I think this plays such a significant role in the motives behind the foreign investment that even if housing was going down they would still make this trade.

And any jurisdiction that loosens zoning restrictions can benefit from the investments that will expand availability instead of being harmed by the consumption of a scarce resource. Potential for a win-win situation.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#613

Post by alvah » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:57 AM UTC

rcarr wrote: post #589

alvah wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I wasn't but I'm assuming you were so would like to hear more about your viewpoints and experiences

I was born in & lived in the UK, but I was only 7 when the 1970s ended, so my viewpoints are of limited value. From what I could gather from my parents & teachers, income tax rates peaked at 90% (and apparently 98% for "unearned income"), which drove high earners who could escape to move overseas, and made the highly-paid but unable to move, unwilling to work many hours. There was obviously a lot more going on (high inflation, growing unemployment, industrial unrest / industrial decline etc), but the ruling political party at the time of these simultaneous debacles would not be elected again for 18 years, and the fallout from their 1970s policies is still being used to attack them 5 decades later.

The couple of short sharp years at 90%, even if it were politically possible, may not actually generate as much extra revenue as you'd think (leaving aside the fact that this isn't really how governments raise operating funds in an unbacked fiat currency world) - unless you force the ultra-wealthy and high-income earners both to stay in the country and to carry on working hard, while taking away most of what they perceive as the fruits of their labors - how do you think that would go?

BTW I suspect you and I have very different opinions and politics. I find it rare these days to be able to have a civil debate "across the divide", kudos for that.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#614

Post by Auracle » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:41 AM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #551

Auracle wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That seems unlikely. A difference of a million or so out of 350 million Americans is not going to have much impact on stabilizing housing. Further, poor immigrants are not buying houses. Perhaps we have to look at regulating foreign buyers, you know, folks with money. But blaming immigrants seems misplaced.

"Last year, 912,000 single-family homes were built, according to building permit data from the US Census. The US population grew by more than 3 million people in that time."

https://usafacts.org/articles/population-growth-has-outpaced...

Cutting that population growth by 1/3rd (or more, really, considering children) sure would help that number, would it not? A huge, huge portion of our population growth is due to illegal immigration.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#615

Post by fleddr » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 12:38 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #608

fleddr wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still doing it...obsessing over a tiny amount of places. "The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation — the national housing agency — said in a June report that close to 19 million housing units will be needed by 2030." Widen your view! These 19 million homes aren't going to be built in 1 or 2 cities.

People cite these cities because they are recognizable, but the hallmarks of the housing crisis are felt all over. Prices are rising even in cheap places like the midwest, because even in those places the rate of new construction is not high enough to meet demand, so prices rise as people bid on limited inventory.

Exactly, and that was the only point I was trying to make: it's a widespread issue. Some people are so stuck in the giant city "NIMBY" narrative that anything outside that narrow scope simply doesn't seem to exist (or matter).

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#616

Post by randomopining » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #551

Auracle wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That seems unlikely. A difference of a million or so out of 350 million Americans is not going to have much impact on stabilizing housing. Further, poor immigrants are not buying houses. Perhaps we have to look at regulating foreign buyers, you know, folks with money. But blaming immigrants seems misplaced.

It's more than a million. And there are delayed effects, like family members coming and of course a higher reproductive rate. Just more people to house in general. Of course immigration is a good thing overall, but let's get skilled workers in first and then fill the rest of the space fairly.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#617

Post by rcarr » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

alvah wrote: post #613

rcarr wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't but I'm assuming you were so would like to hear more about your viewpoints and experiences

I was born in & lived in the UK, but I was only 7 when the 1970s ended, so my viewpoints are of limited value. From what I could gather from my parents & teachers, income tax rates peaked at 90% (and apparently 98% for "unearned income"), which drove high earners who could escape to move overseas, and made the highly-paid but unable to move, unwilling to work many hours. There was obviously a lot more going on (high…

> The couple of short sharp years at 90%, even if it were politically possible, may not actually generate as much extra revenue as you'd think (leaving aside the fact that this isn't really how governments raise operating funds in an unbacked fiat currency world) - unless you force the ultra-wealthy and high-income earners both to stay in the country and to carry on working hard, while taking away most of what they perceive as the fruits of their labors - how do you think that would go?

I do agree it's not likely to work. I think the war was unique in that it was an existential threat to the rich e.g if you assets are the properties and factories in a country that's being bombed then you have no choice but to do something about it unless you want to lose all your wealth. Now everything is so globalised, even war isn't the existential threat it was. I do think we need to raise taxes on earnings through capital/assets somehow though, at least to parity with income tax.

> BTW I suspect you and I have very different opinions and politics. I find it rare these days to be able to have a civil debate "across the divide", kudos for that.

I used to be left leaning when I was in my teens and early twenties but I've consider myself non-affiliated now. I think that both sides are right and that the approach that should be taken is the one that best suits the situation at hand. I actually think that what this country (UK) could do with at the moment is a cross party government with ministers from multiple parties in ministerial roles to get rid of this nasty divisive streak we've got going on atm and start leveraging the experience and knowledge of everybody for the greater good.

I imagine my original post comes across as quite left wing. I was trying to avoid that by stating that I only saw the high tax rate as a temporary measure but the entire post was quite emotionally laden as well which didn't help. I am quite angry because I think politicians have been leading very poorly over the last decade or so. I feel like they're not only failing to help people maximise their potential, but they're actively sabotaging it with their policies. There are so many lives being wasted as a result.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#618

Post by tux2bsd » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:24 AM UTC

tjpnz wrote: post #430

tux2bsd wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One good rule of thumb is that whenever people are blaming foreigners for their problems, they're wrong. The current trend is that people from nations that were colonisers are the cause of, and are responsible for, the woes of descendants of colonised peoples. It's good to see that you can see through the bullshit too. There are only select groups that can invest in property, they must reach the baseline investment…

>Offshore control of property can easily be weaponised, where it's not about investment but instead about legal denial of property to the locals. >NZ suffers from some of this. Given all of the geopolitical problems China's creating now that was absolutely the right call. Of course the country's still massively exposed with more than 30% of the economy built on trade with China. We've effectively handed an authoritar…

Your comment is grey, I think that means you're guilty of wrongspeak. They simply can't just let a comment be a comment... they must suppress speech.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#619

Post by anticensor » Fri, Jan 06, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

cheeseomlit wrote: post #574

asdff wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes exist to fund the government and I support having a government and public programs.

They don't though, that's what I'm saying. Take a look at https://www.usdebtclock.org- the US government is funded by debt, not taxes. If the government accumulates so much debt that it becomes a mathematical impossibility for tax revenue to ever pay it down then what is the actual purpose of paying those taxes? The purpose is to remove privately held currency from circulation, which is necessary if you want to print…

That only holds up if there is only a single tax recipient that is controlled by the same entity as the entity that controls the money printing. That is almost never the case, as there are local taxes, rebates, fines, deductions and exemptions. In fact, even the central and local governments pay each other.