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

theguardian.com

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

#231

Post by vivekd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #186
throwaway4aday wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked great for Vancouver /s

To be fair, you're referring to one of the largest and fastest-growing economies in Canada [1]. (It also has a massive affordability crisis despite a ban on non-student foreigners buying expensive real estate.) [1] https://www.katrinaandtheteam.com/blog/vancouver-bc-economy/

Half the people in Vancouver are thinking about leaving and 25% want to leave within the next 5 years. People are leaving in droves largely because of costs. That seems to make the parents point - that the ecnomic benefits from immigration accrue to the few and the wealthy while making life harder for average people

https://vancouversun.com/news/survey-finds-half-of-metro-van...

I can sympathize with it because I live in Toronto and am also thinking about leaving. Do I hate immigrants, no there aren't actually that many immigrants in the city core where I live. But certaintly there is an affordability crsis that has gripped the city and the country and wages seemed to be supressed and there seems to be less job opportunities (likely due to all that extra labour coming in)

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

#232

Post by whazor »

louison11 wrote: post #158
delroth wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does allowing *non-residents* to buy real estate help in attracting foreigners and cultivate growth?

Money invested from abroad is money coming inside the economy - whether the person lives there or not. That money goes to the seller, who'll then get taxed on it, spend it somewhere else... Or that money could be used, as I said, to build new buildings and rehabilitate old ones, thus creating jobs in the process. If the system was well set up for it, foreigners investing in a country is usually a good thing. The US i…

Alternatively, I got my current house because of KYC laws.

The house bidding was originally won by someone abroad. They overbid the house by a lot. However, because of the KYC laws, that person needed to proof their income is legitimate, which they couldn’t. Therefore, we got the house.

Building new houses costs 10 years in my country. So building new houses is not fast enough to create new affordable houses.

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

#233

Post by motorest »

fabrice_d wrote: post #163
iforgot22 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a hot real estate market, there will be more market pressure to fix the dilapidated properties in good areas. Say they instead keep values artificially low so an EU resident can buy a property for cheap, and it stays cheap. What's the benefit?

The benefit is that more people can afford to buy houses? Really surprising to see a country taking care of their people, and not just the wealthy ones! All the hypotheses claiming that "the market pressure will improve things for all" have been proven false at this point. We have decades of data, and this is only widening the inequality gap.

> The benefit is that more people can afford to buy houses?

Can they? I mean, what is your plan to lower current housing prices? Cut off demand from foreigners with purchasing power and instead replace it with demand from people who cannot afford a home? They are not even the same housing market, are they?

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

#234

Post by zxspectrum1982 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #156
zxspectrum1982 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illegal according to European Union law so this is just one more lie by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. https://www.vozpopuli.com/economia/el-castigo-fiscal-a-los-c...

> It's illegal according to European Union law Is this firmly established or contended? Article 63 of the Treaty of Lisbon [1] bans "all restrictions on the movement of capital between Member States and between Member States and third countries" [2]. To define "movement of capital," we must look to Annex I to Council Directive 88/361/EEC of 24 June 1988 [3]. It says "purchases of buildings and land and the constructi…

It is firmly established. Read the article I linked.

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

#235

Post by rolothrow »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126
rolothrow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> every week I can see ads for "we buy your house, paid upfront over market value, Chinese investors" It specifically calls out that they're Chinese? Are you sure this isn't a political stunt?

Yes, it literally says Chinese investor.I guess it's to make the idea of buying immediately a flat with cash sound less shady.

I have no idea of the reasoning why specifically Chinese people invest in Spanish real state paying with cash, it's just what I see.

>Are you sure this isn't a political stunt?

It's our president's whole thing to take measures that sorta move the needle in a good direction but are focused on being good moves politically. My guess is he needs to act against rent prices, he can't go after the big guys (blackrock, etc) for fear of retribution and he can't go after the regular joe that buys a second house as investment. Foreign investors don't vote, so they're the next best option.

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

#236

Post by sadeshmukh »

ryan_lane wrote: post #227
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Europe foreigners often buy the most expensive historical real estate they can lay their hands on Source? (I'm generally hugely sceptical of uniform statements about how capital behaves across the EU, let alone Europe.)

Where's the source for your assertion? You're making a claim that foreign investment is beneficial with no source, but then requiring one when someone disagrees with you?

A theoretical argument was countered with an assertion - it's plausible that investment -> lower risk, but there is no reasoning to get "foreign investment is focused on X area".

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

#237

Post by [deleted] »

bdangubic wrote: post #214
iforgot22 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, not many places. But that's the complaint from some people.

give me some places where it is not and we’ll look at zillow or whatever public data there is for a given region. unless we are talking like rural-no-is-around-for-miles perhaps but otherwise properties over the last 10-15 years have appreciated

[deleted]

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

#238

Post by seanmcdirmid »

epicureanideal wrote: post #173
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A housing bust in 2008 washed a lot of capital and talent out of the house construction industry, and the current boom is hard to supply with construction capacity even when there is land to build on. And also, even if the land exists, there is already a SFH on it that needs to be torn down, so we are densifying at a slower rate than we need to. Couple that with an even increasing focus of good job opportunities into…

There are robotic construction companies like FBR, and plenty of open stretches of land along highway 101, 680, 880, etc.

There is a lot of cheap housing in the south and Midwest as well, but it isn’t very relevant since people are picky about where they want to live.

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

#239

Post by motorest »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #159
WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that argument assumes you can only blame 1 thing at a time. Even if the bureaucracy is the worst offender, every foreigner buying a house still results in 1 less house for Spaniards. Sure, fix bureaucracy, but don't pretend foreign purchases have zero effect.

> every foreigner buying a house still results in 1 less house for Spaniards In a very limited scope, sure. What that foreign capital also does is lower risk and thus capital costs for development and improvement. (In the event of a limited crisis, for lenders as well.) Whether the net effect goes one way or another is more complicated than what you describe. Put another way, if foreigners could only buy unbuilt unit…

> Put another way, if foreigners could only buy unbuilt units, would you still say they're resulting in fewer houses for Spaniards? Do the countries shunned by foreign investors have affordable housing?

Exactly, and to further drive the point home the real estate investments driven by foreign investment are targeting entirely different markets, such as luxury homes and tourism, whereas the complains about lack of access to housing come from those who already struggle to buy the cheapest units in working class suburbs, where the foreign investments are clearly not being made.

So the question you should be asking is how come you're not seeing investments in affordable housing across the country at a time where you see foreign investment in luxury and tourist areas. Then you'd realize that you're discussing two entirely different things that bear no relationship.

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

#240

Post by motorest »

rgtank108 wrote: post #177
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every foreigner buying a house still results in 1 less house for Spaniards In a very limited scope, sure. What that foreign capital also does is lower risk and thus capital costs for development and improvement. (In the event of a limited crisis, for lenders as well.) Whether the net effect goes one way or another is more complicated than what you describe. Put another way, if foreigners could only buy unbuilt unit…

What is this contrarian sophistry? In Europe foreigners often buy the most expensive historical real estate they can lay their hands on. If they do build something, it is office buildings for investment that take up space and often remain empty (Chinese are good at that). These investments still take up space and drive up real estate prices. Where do you even live?

> What is this contrarian sophistry? In Europe foreigners often buy the most expensive historical real estate they can lay their hands on.

Yes, they make real estate investments in luxury and high-end sector, some of which boarded up for decades.

It's not like your average working class citizen is on the house for a manor house in the city center.

These are not the same markets.

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