This will undoubtedly make some brexiteers very unhappy.
It's quite funny because Great Britain is the reason why the Spanish won their war of independence.
Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
41–50 of 282 posts
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's causing it in the US?
NIMBYism making it extremely difficult and expensive to build supply as is needed. in 1946 the US had a population of 141M and built 700k housing units in 2024 the US had a population of 336M and built 90k housing units
> in 2024 the US had a population of 336M and built 90k housing units
That was one month’s worth. There were ~1.5 million built in 2024 in the US.
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#43so is there any actual evidence that foreign home ownership is causing meaningful housing price inflation in Spain? or is this just uninformed pandering like it is in the US
What's causing it in the US?
New development was made illegal in the places people want to live.
It's that simple.
Now, you may agree with the given reasons for making that development illegal (and/or very expensive), or you may not, but that is the undeniable end result of those policies. We made that bed, now we lay in it; we could theoretically un-make that bed overnight, but there's serious money (and political power) riding on making sure this problem never goes away.
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#44Just tax land value.
How do you calculate the unimproved land value?
This is an interesting question with the fires in LA right now. Is the land still as valuable as it was before the house burned down, minus the rebuild cost of the house? Or is the value intrinsically tied to the community that was there but no longer is? Or is the value actually higher now that a developer can come in and remake an entire neighborhood?
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#45so is there any actual evidence that foreign home ownership is causing meaningful housing price inflation in Spain? or is this just uninformed pandering like it is in the US
Meaningful is a weasel word here. Even 0.1% price increase which would be impossible to measure directly still adds up across the entire housing sector. But, equally important is simply the number of natives prevented from buying the home they want because someone is getting a vacation property.
Yeah, you have 0.1% of a house, sure. But do that across a thousand houses and you have 100% of the houses. It's that simple.
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meaningful is a weasel word here. Even 0.1% price increase which would be impossible to measure directly still adds up across the entire housing sector. But, equally important is simply the number of natives prevented from buying the home they want because someone is getting a vacation property.
But you also need to measure the dampening impact on home building. If builders would have built N units knowing they could easily sell some % them to foreign buyers but now they can’t, then you might lose the whole supply. And all the knock on effects for contractors, suppliers, etc
Cities are rarely constrained by the willingness of someone to build housing, it’s generally more an issue of being allowed to build housing.
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#47so is there any actual evidence that foreign home ownership is causing meaningful housing price inflation in Spain? or is this just uninformed pandering like it is in the US
Totally anecdotal, but I live in the largest city in Spain, and even in my residential area (as opposed to the touristy spots) every week I can see ads for "we buy your house, paid upfront over market value, Chinese investors".
Posters in walls, flyers in windshields and so on.
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but it's one thing to not be building enough for people to live in, and another thing to not be building enough for people to keep empty flats as speculation vehicles.
How many % of flats are empty? At least in the US the hottest housing markets usually have the lowest vacancy rates. This makes sense, because the opportunity costs for leaving a property empty is higher, so owners are more tempted to rent them out.
I think it's really important to press people on this point, because "vacant homes as an investment vehicle" gets trotted out as a thought-killing cliche.
Surely there are some pied-a-terre and vacant investment properties, but vacant rental housing in NYC for example was 1.4% in 2023. I'm not sure how they measure this, but even if you doubled the amount of available rental housing, it would still be an insanely hot rental market.
Places that have stable or decreasing housing prices (NoLa, Austin) have over 10% of rentals vacant.
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#49Average house price in Netherlands is 500k. If you offload your house to the next sucker you can still outbid most people when you move to Spain as a pensionado.
Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meaningful is a weasel word here. Even 0.1% price increase which would be impossible to measure directly still adds up across the entire housing sector. But, equally important is simply the number of natives prevented from buying the home they want because someone is getting a vacation property.
Yeah, you have 0.1% of a house, sure. But do that across a thousand houses and you have 100% of the houses. It's that simple.
500$ on a 500k house might not seem like a big deal, but I’d still rather have the 500$.