It took me three tries to buy a house this summer. I lost the first two to overseas buyers with all cash.
One of the properties was vacant and owned by a Taiwanese citizen. I guess they really don't care about ROI.
Chinese Buyers Replace Canadians as Top Foreign Buyers of U.S. Homes
31–35 of 35 posts
Re: Chinese Buyers Replace Canadians as Top Foreign Buyers of U.S. Homes
#32I've seen this, anecdotally, in trying to buy a house in the bay area. I've lost two serious bids to "foreign investors" who pay 10% above asking price, 100% cash, with no contingencies. I've heard stories of these properties going vacant, as well. It's frustrating. An acquaintance who works as a wealth management consultant made an interesting point: there are hot markets in other areas of the country, but SFO is ri…
This is commonplace in London too. Streets of empty properties. London already has a housing crisis which can't be fixed by ordinary means because the population growth far exceeds the property construction, despite it having been ramped up. What would help of course is Land Value Tax, but that is less desirable the higher up the social pyramid you are.
Another way would be forcing empty properties to be let, and fine owners who don't
Re: Chinese Buyers Replace Canadians as Top Foreign Buyers of U.S. Homes
#33I work in real estate and am privy to the behind-the-scenes details of some of these all cash, foreign buyer deals, in markets like SF, NYC and Miami. There's nothing new about it: money laundering has been around for a long time. And that's all it is, money laundering. Chinese families are moving assets out of China and into real estate in Western countries in order to evade taxes, evade lawsuits (often for obvious…
best long term solution would be to just "build more New-Yorks and San Franciscos". US is starting to have a "London problem" where too much of our economic and social capital is concentrated in a handful of cities. You can't have 300 million people and growing forever competing for a place in one of those cities. The government just needs to encourage more of these type of cities that can compete on a global level.
Re: Chinese Buyers Replace Canadians as Top Foreign Buyers of U.S. Homes
#34I work in real estate and am privy to the behind-the-scenes details of some of these all cash, foreign buyer deals, in markets like SF, NYC and Miami. There's nothing new about it: money laundering has been around for a long time. And that's all it is, money laundering. Chinese families are moving assets out of China and into real estate in Western countries in order to evade taxes, evade lawsuits (often for obvious…
Why not just add a tax for homes that aren't your primary residence? Foreigners will not do this since they would need to pay income tax as well?
1) Easy to game the system.
2) Why? Somebody is already paying 100% of the property tax without putting stress on the roads, the schools, police and fire services, local parks, libraries, and other services that local governments are hired to provide. The neighbors get more bang for their buck, leave alone financial stability that property appreciation brings.
Re: Chinese Buyers Replace Canadians as Top Foreign Buyers of U.S. Homes
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not just add a tax for homes that aren't your primary residence? Foreigners will not do this since they would need to pay income tax as well?
1) Easy to game the system. 2) Why? Somebody is already paying 100% of the property tax without putting stress on the roads, the schools, police and fire services, local parks, libraries, and other services that local governments are hired to provide. The neighbors get more bang for their buck, leave alone financial stability that property appreciation brings.
Those people also put nothing into local economy through their spending. You get the vancouver effect. No incomes or jobs, but high housing prices.
A high tax for unoccupied residences would be a better one. It would increase housing supply so the double whammie of buying a house and leaving it unoccupied wouldn't effect the housing supply nearly as much.