Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#441

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #302

Spooky23 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's never a root reason. But because real estate agents are middlemen in the process, there's an incentive in a hot market to not act as an honest broker. When the market isn't "hot", a realtor has an interest to move quickly. When the market is hot, they have incentive to move their own listings so they get both sides of the commission. In my case circa 2005, I bid $50k over list via the broker who was managing…

For the record dual agency is actually illegal in some places: https://www.homelight.com/blog/dual-agency-is-illegal-in-som... Though I will point out that in most of the jurisdictions in the link provided, there's nothing that prevents your scenario - a third party offer is turned down due to the dual agency bid being favored by the sellers because they never received your bid. Only in Colorado, Florida or Kansas is…

Totally get that what the other guy did wasn't illegal in my state. The thing that bothers me is that as salespeople, real estate agents can deploy all sorts of fluffery and bamboozle people who believe their "agents" are acting in their interest.

Of course the reality is that there is very little governing their conduct and behavior. Without a functional "exchange" or disclosure rules, both buyer and seller are dependent on good faith.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#442

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

cameronh90 wrote: post #392

techsupporter wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's what the person you replied to mean when they wrote: > hitting the limits of sprawl (congested highway commute time) There's only so far you can bus, train, drive, bike, walk, seaplane, helicopter, hyperloop, or transporter in to go to work. Canadian cities are, just like cities in the US, hitting this limit rather aggressively. In cities where sprawl isn't physically prohibitive, like Calgary or Toronto,…

> There's only so far you can bus, train, drive, bike, walk, seaplane, helicopter, hyperloop, or transporter in to go to work. Canadian cities are, just like cities in the US, hitting this limit rather aggressively. Canada's largest urban area is 5.6 million people. London, Paris and Seoul are around double that, NYC is 19 million and Tokyo is 37 million. Why are Canadian cities hitting this limit at such a comparati…

I'd argue that NYC is not such shining example when it comes to commutes or sprawl, either. That particular corridor has some of the most traffic and longest commute durations in the country.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#443

Post by bombcar » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #124

paulgb wrote: post #86

> Freeland will introduce legislation that allows Canadians under the age of 40 to save as much as C$40,000 ($31,900) for a home downpayment within a new tax-exempt vehicle, the person said. I'm not an economist but this seems pretty dumb? To the extent that it helps someone afford a home that they can save tax-free for it, the same is true of some of the people they're bidding against, driving up the price they ulti…

It is not actually possible to increase the supply of good suburbia. The virtue of a suburban home is to be on a large plot of land with low-intensity neighbors and convenient vehicle access to places, and this genuinely can’t scale very far. Even if you have infinitely much land, you will never build enough roads or lanes. We can increase the supply of other things which are also called “housing” but are fundamental…

You actually could, basically, if you really wanted to do it. If there was an efficient high-speed corridor into the major metro area, suburbs could be much further out along it and it'd still work out well.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#444

Post by arrosenberg » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

tomatowurst wrote: post #422

arrosenberg wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not xenophobic, it's classist. I'd make a similar statement about domestic rich people, but at least they can make the argument that they contribute to the civics of the city in some way by actually being present and involved. If you expropriated all of the unoccupied mansions and replaced them with normal-priced, mixed housing, the cost of housing in the city would broadly go down, as supply would massively inc…

The crux of the issue are zoning laws that artificially suppress supply. in particular the city of vancouver have resisted rezoning to high density low rise homes because it hurts their voter base who are NIMBY multiple property home owning Canadians who turn around to sell them to whoever will buy them. and then the masses turn around to blame that group. its straight up xenophobia one that has been in Vancouver for…

Yes, one group of people got rich and now a different group of have-nots are mad at the people left holding the land. That is not an uncommon historical trope. That has nothing to do with what I said - unoccupied mansions on valuable land are an economic crime against the average person. If you want to blame that on zoning laws, you’d probably be correct in many cases, but its also a taxation issue.

I’m not from Vancouver, so their xenophobia doesn’t apply to me. Vancouverites burned down their own city after losing the Stanley Cup Finals - I’m definitely not here to defend their character. You can stop going to that well, I only see this as land use issue.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#445

Post by givemeethekeys » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

Will Canada ban > 50% foreign ownership of all state property? If not, then this will be the most useless ban ever. All you have to do as a foreigner is register a Canadian company and have the company buy the real estate.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#446

Post by voisin » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

armagon wrote: post #388

Majromax wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's generally happened. House prices have notably increased not just in major cities, but also in smaller municipalities within commuting distances of Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Montreal. Truly "cheap" housing is historically limited to rural areas far outside the traditional commuting area of the big cities, but the covid shock has put even that in question through remote work. Even though a small number of…

Goodness, I live in a rural area, and the house prices are only insane, instead of egregiously insane. I don't know how I'd afford a home for a young family if I was just starting out today.

I concur with this. The story of insane housing prices being limited to TO and Vancouver is a 2016 story. Since the pandemic, it has hit ever podunk town in the country. Look at rural Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for evidence. Same price increases on a percentage basis as in significantly more populated areas.

It’s interest rates!

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#447

Post by rank0 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

richbell wrote: post #397

rank0 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculation isn’t great, but let’s not pretend this is some elaborate scheme orchestrated by all the homeowners. If it’s feasible and profitable to build new homes, then developers will do so. Everyone loves the simple solution of “build more houses”. Very few actually consider the execution of the master plan. What would it take for you to start building homes? It’s an enormous risk, requires tons of upfront capital…

> What would it take for you to start building homes? It’s an enormous risk, requires tons of upfront capital, specialized labor and supplies. There's also no incentive to build affordable or well-constructed homes. Many builders will try to maximize profit by investing the bare minimum (i.e., cutting corners) and creating the largest number of dwellings possible. Mattamy Homes is infamous for developing large neighb…

> There's also no incentive to build affordable or well-constructed homes.

This is sort of my point. Who's going to build the "affordable housing"? Why won't the affordable housing get snatched up by the highest bidder?

The federal government already spends way more than it can afford. State/local governments don't have anywhere near enough tax revenue. It would require a multi-trillion dollar operation to increase supply enough to offset shortages.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#448

Post by voisin » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

CountSessine wrote: post #237

LimaBearz wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it so far fetched to assume some realtors may be juicing the bidding to increase their own commission and to make their firm more uhh "prestigious" by being able to drive up the price for their own marketing purposes further down the line. Likewise if you dont know who you're bidding against, how do you even know the bidder is even real (foreign or not)? Transparency is good thing. While there may be some "scarcit…

Is it so far fetched to assume some realtors may be juicing the bidding to... Of course not, and I didn't say that I'm completely against reforming the real estate industry and the bidding process. But it won't fix expensive housing. It's all bullsh*t if it doesn't address scarcity. In 2016 we had had 10 years of 2% population growth in Vancouver and 1.2% housing stock growth and we wanted to blame foreign investors,…

Jack up interest rates (or qualifying rates) and demand plummets, particularly among multi unit investors. That should help scarcity.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#449

Post by imtringued » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

AzzieElbab wrote: post #121

boplicity wrote: post #88

> During last year’s election campaign, Trudeau’s party also proposed a ban on “blind bidding” for houses -- the prevailing system by which offers are kept secret when someone is auctioning a home. This is such a huge deal. Anyone who has had to go through the process of buying a home through a bidding war knows how unfair and one-sided this process is. It take a high-pressure emotional situation, and gives all of th…

I think people are missing the fact that for many Canadians values of their homes represent their live savings. So while homeownership remains high in Canada doing something substantial about re prices would ruin peoples lives.

>I think people are missing the fact that for many Canadians values of their homes represent their live savings.

Let's ignore the property itself, which is a depreciating asset which was built and can be improved through manual labor.

That land is going to stay the same no matter how much you pay. Paying more for the same plot of land doesn't make it better. You don't get a bigger plot or a plot of better quality by spending more on the land. The land isn't wealth, it's the community around the land that gives it value. If you have demographic problems, your land is going to be worthless because the community is too old and shrinking.

Betting on ever growing populations is a pyramid scheme by the way.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#450

Post by paulmd » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

djbebs wrote: post #381

Majromax wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do those foreign investors leave the house empty? Who cares if we can just build more? I'll note here that there is a legitimate complaint to vacant housing. Some expensive city infrastructure like transit is supported by people-density rather than house-density, so a community of empty homes doesn't justify a subway line in the way that a bustling, lived-in community would. Municipal funding that comes from the pr…

There is no legitimate complaint about empty housing, not just because empty houses pay the same tax as occupied ones, but because empty housing is a myth.

> not just because empty houses pay the same tax as occupied ones

you've literally just responded to a post demonstrating that this is not the case, please don't just do template rants off keywords