Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 282 posts

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#51

Post by LeafItAlone »

imperfect_light wrote: post #22
affinepplan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where are these numbers from? How does 5 million housing units from 2020-2023 (this was published in 2024) translate into "90K housing units" >The United States has added almost 5 million housing units since 2020, most heavily in the South and most of them single-family homes, making a housing shortage look conquerable in much of the nation. https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/05/16/housing-boom-... .

Parent used a single month’s count for the whole year

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#52

Post by bakugo »

WalterBright wrote: post #29
bee_rider wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much regulation or greedy landlords depending on your political persuasion.

There's never been a time when people were not greedy. The "suddenly, people started being greedy" meme doesn't make much sense.

People have indeed always been greedy, but the greediest are becoming more wealthy and powerful by the day.

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#53

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

golergka wrote: post #15

I want to make sure I understand this correctly. If you bought a house a few years ago, Spain will effectively rob you of it now? Or will it only apply to new purchases, so you'll have to pay x2 market value if you want to buy one? If it's the former, than even flaunting such a plan is a complete catastrophe for any foreign investment in Spain from now on. But if it's the latter, it'll just bring to life a whole indu…

> a complete catastrophe for any foreign investment in Spain from now on

No doubt because

a) all foreign investment always comes with individuals from the investment source purchasing homes in the investment target country

b) Germany is no longer foreign when it comes to Spain, so any money invested by Germany would not count as "foreign investment"

Am I right?

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#54

Post by hadlock »

affinepplan wrote: post #12
rvnx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada potentially Chinese immigrants in Vancouver/Toronto, in the US it's an over-generous monetary policy (through low interest rates, especially during COVID)

in Canada, like in the US, it's a lack of supply mostly because of draconian zoning and land-use policies. Chinese immigrants are NOT the primary cause of housing cost inflation, and are likely not even in the top 10 causes.

Are you saying prices didn't go up because of Chinese investors, or Chinese immigrants? I haven't heard anyone discussing immigration as a root cause

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#55

Post by fastball »

jedberg wrote: post #44
nozzlegear wrote: post #7

Just 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?

I definitely recommend reading Lars Doucet's treatment[1] of this subject. You can skip to section 5 if you want the most direct answer to your question, but the whole thing is worth reading.

The short answer is that there are many ways you can assess unimproved land value. The "Multiple Regression Analysis" method I think is the most relevant here: you'll see from the linked article a table that includes all sorts of factors related to both aspects you mention: factors of neighborhood/community (some positive, some negative) and factors of potential (some positive, some negative). e.g. there is even a factor of "Proximity to natural disaster areas", which would definitely decrease the land value after this LA-area disaster.

In this particular case, I would expect that Land Values would go down after the fires, as there are many more factors related to positive neighborhood features (which no longer exist if the neighborhood has burned down) than there are factors related to "development potential". Though of course it also matters how you weight these things.

Anyway read the article, my summary does not do the subject justice!

[1] https://www.gameofrent.com/content/can-land-be-accurately-as...

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#57

Post by renewiltord »

WalterBright wrote: post #29
bee_rider wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much regulation or greedy landlords depending on your political persuasion.

There's never been a time when people were not greedy. The "suddenly, people started being greedy" meme doesn't make much sense.

Nah. There was this time when egg farms got greedy and raised the price. Then they became not greedy again and it's fine. Similar situation with software engineers. They got greedy and salaries went up. When they become less greedy, like rights now, things go down a little.

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#58

Post by alexanderchr »

golergka wrote: post #15

I want to make sure I understand this correctly. If you bought a house a few years ago, Spain will effectively rob you of it now? Or will it only apply to new purchases, so you'll have to pay x2 market value if you want to buy one? If it's the former, than even flaunting such a plan is a complete catastrophe for any foreign investment in Spain from now on. But if it's the latter, it'll just bring to life a whole indu…

What make you think it would apply retroactively? Taxes rarely do, I can’t even think of a single example (but would be happy to learn about one).

Putting someone else’s name on the deed is a very bad idea for several reasons. I really can’t imagine anyone doing that, unless it’s a trusted family member or something like that.

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#59

Post by glaucon »

affinepplan wrote: post #9
stavros wrote: post #4

Earlier 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 1946 the US had a population of 141M and built 700k housing units

I think the year after the second world war ended at which point marriages, and therefore household formation, went to unprecedented levels introduces a lot of noise into that signal

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#60

Post by LeafItAlone »

MattGaiser wrote: post #34
giantg2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"NIMBYism making it extremely difficult and expensive to build supply as is needed." Only in some areas. There are other factors affecting how expensive houses are across the country, such as materials/labor, preferences for larger/fancier houses, location preference, and increasingly complex/expensive code.

> preferences for larger/fancier houses And more space per person, so older houses now house far fewer than they used to. US has more bedrooms without an occupant than ever. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/realestate/empty-bedrooms...

I wonder how empty-nesting attributes to this. My parents have 3 empty (really, repurposed) bedrooms in their house now. But downsizing in their area wouldn’t actually help financially, so they don’t.
Post reply on HN