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

Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 1001 posts

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#201

Post by RocketOne »

Im one of those 'greedy' old farts who owns more than one home. We have one for ourselves and 5 rentals. Im starting to agree with those who are feeling priced out of the market. What would make me stop buying homes? A graduated tax would.

If there were no sales tax on the first two, and then 15% tax on the third, 25% tax on the 4th, and going up by 10% for each subsequent house, it would definitely make me quit buying likely by the 3rd or maybe the 4th house. Too expensive after that.

Then that money could go half to the gov, and half to subsidizing first time homeowners by giving them no interest loans for downpayments, or even grants if they qualify at a low enough income. I wouldnt object to that - real estate has been good to me, I think it would be fine if my taxes were helping others to start out.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#202

Post by chasd00 »

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #176
stevesimmons wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Melbourne, this is totally normal. Everyone stands in the street, prospective buyers, neighbours, and people starting their house search. The estate agent stands on the front step, acting as the auctioneer, using the rolled up "Section 32" document like a gavel. Typically the auctioneer draws out bids in $10-20k increments, then knocks it down with a "going once, going twice, going three times..." call. Just befor…

> Sales almost never fall through. If the buyer cannot get financing etc, the seller keeps their 10% deposit. The seller cannot back out. In the states, once the purchase agreement is signed, the home goes through inspection at some point before the sale. The inspector finds a hundred little problems with the house, and the buyer can back out of the sale for any little complaint.

> The inspector finds a hundred little problems with the house, and the buyer can back out of the sale for any little complaint.

But that’s a very well known risk. An agent will have a whole checklist of things to look at before putting a house on the market to minimize that risk. Also, buyers lose at least some money if they back out, there’s a nominal sum put up that you don’t get back if you decide to not buy once the process is started.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#203

Post by randomdata »

momirlan wrote: post #162

mandate remote work. many office workers in Toronto would sell their homes and move out of the city, even out of the province.

Haven't they already? As a resident of rural Canada, the price of the average home here is up over 100% since early 2020 when the people of Toronto started moving here.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#204

Post by sumedh »

incomingpain wrote: post #171
sumedh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have how many foreign investment agreements? Do these agreements say that foreigners have a right to buy houses in Canada?

>Do these agreements say that foreigners have a right to buy houses in Canada? For sure. https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreeme... CPTPP ensures that investors from the Asia-Pacific receive fair and non-discriminatory treatment. This means they must receive the same level of treatment as Canadian investors and any third-country investor in similar situations.

So Chinese investors can buy houses in Canada but if I am not mistaken Canadians cannot buy property in China. How does that make any sense?

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#205

Post by WithinReason »

Wohlf wrote: post #161
tomrod wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Triple or quadruple property taxes after the 10th purchased residence in the state. Encourage tax breaks through high density development of condos with coop property management firms.

Pretty sure this would just drive up rental costs.

How?

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#206

Post by nucleardog »

jnmandal wrote: post #43

Having your housing stock bought up as holdings by nonresidents is not great. It hollows out the communities by having choice housing sit empty and it raises the cost of living for everyone who is actually there. I'm interested to see how this plays out. It seems pretty heavy handed. Zoning denser housing or placing limited restrictions on square footage may proved smarter in the long term. That said, two years is pr…

> I'm interested to see how this plays out.

Nothing will happen. All it accomplishes is reducing competition for local investors (which is probably why this is the solution they've chosen--local investors vote, contribute to campaigns, and make up something like 2/3 of our politicians). We have more than enough local investors with enough capital and assets to sustain the high prices and continue driving absurd growth.

They've tried similar (but less extreme) solutions in places like Vancouver. Huge taxes on foreign purchasers. Property price growth slowed a couple percent... for about 6 months, by which point it was back to doing what it was before even as the tax was expanded. The only thing driving the slowdown was probably uncertainty.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#207

Post by 11101010001100 »

RocketOne wrote: post #201

Im one of those 'greedy' old farts who owns more than one home. We have one for ourselves and 5 rentals. Im starting to agree with those who are feeling priced out of the market. What would make me stop buying homes? A graduated tax would. If there were no sales tax on the first two, and then 15% tax on the third, 25% tax on the 4th, and going up by 10% for each subsequent house, it would definitely make me quit buyi…

>What would make me stop buying homes?

Are you saying you don't know what to do with your money?

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#208

Post by sofixa »

pembrook wrote: post #130

A quick look at the data suggests only about 2% of properties in Toronto and Vancouver are owned by overseas investors. Yes, housing is priced at the margin, but this won't do anything at all to prices over the long term. I'm sure this will be wildly popular politically, because people LOVE the idea that some foreign boogieman is the reason their children can't afford homes anymore. It's much easier to outsource your…

> Like all cities in areas with heavy-handed zoning regulations, abuse of historic preservation clauses, and filibuster-style city council meetings blocking new construction...the issue is one of supply.

> It's the same problem in literally every developed country on earth right now.

The problem with making generalisations is that you're often wrong. The French real estate market has problems, with prices rising in some city cores ( mostly Paris), but it's not nearly as bad as many other places due to a myriad of factor and policies, like decent to good public transit ( which is undergoing massive upgrades) to nearby dense "suburbs", multiple programmes encouraging newbuilt homeownership and buy-to-let (at fixes prices) through lower taxes or cheaper loans. Paris is expensive, but you can get a much cheaper appartement or house within train distance. Of course, for newbuilt waiting lists are at ~2 years due to demand, but there's a lot of supply being built constantly, in Paris and around it - entire neighborhoods or former industrial areas are getting razed to the ground and rebuilt as decently dense (5-6 floor) appartement buildings. And that's just Paris, most other cities are better.

All that while there's very strict zoning, high building standards, lots of protections for tenants and buyers, including rent controls, hard rules around eviction and absolutely crazy preservation rules.

I know people who can't cut the dangerous trees in their yard because their yard is visible ( less than 1km) from the roof of a church which is a national monument, and they need approval from the Architects of France.

Re: Canada bans foreign home buyers for two years

#209

Post by user3939382 »

bluGill wrote: post #149
user3939382 wrote: post #53

Related, I’m concerned about the trend of megacorporations gobbling up single-family homes which appears to be happening in the US and Canada. I wonder if it’s possible to construct a law that would limit corporate ability to acquire these assets while making it possible for families to do so. Unfortunately, even if there is, politicians at least in DC seem to have zero motivation to solve political problems unless t…

The vast majority of houses are not going to foreigners or corporations. Some do, but it is only a tiny percentage. We need to build more housing, in the end housing costs are about supply and demand.

The problem is more with the trend and where it leads.
Post reply on HN