Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#461

Post by exfascist » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #411

cameronh90 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Why are all the major cities in the western world seemingly hitting this limit at the same time, even though they all have different populations? I can’t speak for Canada, but in America the answer is always cars. Car based transit is wildly land inefficient, and the main reason why all car based cities hit their limit at the same time. In particular there are two huge shortcomings with cars in urban design: 1. Par…

So I hate driving and actually moved to DC for work and also partly for the transit. Here's what I found:

1) Taking the metro many places (for example, from my apartment in an urban "luxury" apartment building a couple blocks from the initial station to my boat near the waterfront in downtown DC) doubled the time it took to get there. It was actually faster to drive there even during rush hour where you'll sit motionless on the 395 bridge. Yes I can redeem a lot of that time with my above average personal mobile computing set up but a: most people have a pretty mediocre personal mobile computing setup and b: now I can't use that time for anything other than programming projects.

2) I couldn't get rid of the car entirely because I still needed it to move bulky things that I really can't take on transit. It's bad enough not having a truck but losing the car entirely would create some serious logistical problems on a regular basis. So while I saved some money I couldn't save as much as I wanted.

3) Most wealthy people (many of my friends) start families^ and people who can afford it buy detached housing for that. You're not going to be taking transit to these places. It might not ever be economical. Like it or not transit will probably always lower property values in the US too. For whatever reason the more violent people here tend to take it and anywhere it goes becomes more violent so building it into suburbs like these is always going to be unpopular.

4) Bringing me to the fact that I've been accosted multiple times on transit by people who were high, drunk, or just belligerent. I have an extremely high tolerance for this sort of thing (I've wandered around some of the more violent cities early in the morning just to see what the fuss is about) but I can absolutely see why most people here would give up after that happening once at a maximum.

I'm a huge fan of transit but pretending it isn't a large sacrifice to give up a car is just going to get people to ignore you, because it is and for most people it isn't worth it.

(^ and for those that don't start families, many have lots of intense DIY projects that don't fit in apartment buildings and actually need either detached housing or industrial space with similar density.)

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#462

Post by nemo44x » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #414

nemo44x wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, list prices are intentionally below market but you know what ... houses are going for crazy amounts because we are in some sort of a bubble Why? The last 40 years interest rates have continued to decline and inflationary pressures have hurt the value of every currency. What reason is there to believe this won't continue indefinitely (low interest + ~2% y/y inflation) and that the market is simply pricing thing…

>Clearly all these homes are being bought so it would appear people have the money. Yes ... Back in 2007, people bought homes as well - so everything was OK - rite? By the way, people aren't paying cash for houses.

Why would you pay cash? I made a cash offer on mine but still took out a loan since interest rates are so low.

Homes are priced based on what people who want to live in a place are willing to pay per month. The interest rate, property tax rate, and home price determine that. As rates go down prices go up.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#463

Post by cmrdporcupine » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

It's just theatre. They don't want to do anything. Foreign buyers are not the source of the price inflation. If they did want to cool prices, they'd make a move to curb demand by forcing borrowing products to be more stringent, among other actions. According to plenty of analysis I've read Canada's problems are not primarily supply related. The price inflation is caused in large part by low interest rates and the ease of purchasing mortgage debt along with psychological willingness to pay more, and the dubious regulations around the real estate industry here.

Canada (especially Ontario and BC) has become so addicted to real estate inflation, so convinced in the inevitability of "number go up" when it comes to housing prices that it would be a toxic pill for any political party or government that actually cooled this market.

Hundreds of thousands of baby boomer upper middle class Liberal voters would freak out. People who have banked their entire retirement on expecting a payout on their home. And an entire generation of people who think this is just what housing does, and don't remember the early 90s housing price slump.

It's toxic, really. Get a group of adults together at a party in any home in Toronto etc. and the conversation veers into banal banter about housing prices and people live in their houses like they live in a product not a home -- what reno can I do to increase its value? What did the neighbour's place sell for? What could I get? Blah blah. It's been like this for so long.

Meanwhile, industrial / manufacturing cities like Hamilton, Windsor etc. have become unaffordable to the people who actually work in the manufacturing jobs. A poison pill for the actual, real, productive secondary industry on which Ontario and Quebec were traditionally built.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#464

Post by 8note » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #306

slg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think that blind bidding is a bit of a scape-goat here: Almost everything mentioned in the various comments here is a scapegoat. These all might contribute a little to the escalating prices at the margins, but they are not the root cause. The root cause is that many capitalist societies have decided that purchasing a house is the most expensive and important investment most people will make in their lifetime. Ther…

Policies that forbid landowners from building housing are central planning and the opposite of capitalism. That aside, this is absolutely correct. It's constantly irritating to hear politicians praise "strong housing markets" when "strong" means "unaffordable if you're not already wealthy".

acting in a way to get rich off your property is very capitalistic, including manipulating policy to raise the value of your property

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#465

Post by cameronh90 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #442

cameronh90 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sure but it got to almost 20 million before it hit that point, unlike Canadian cities.

There's also only been one subway line opened this century.

We seemed to do better at facilitating growth last century, particular in the first half. Since then we've struggled, mostly for political reasons.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#466

Post by bryanlarsen » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #255

bryanlarsen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal Liberals can't do anything about that, it's a provincial responsibility. The Ontario provincial Conservatives commissioned a report into how to make housing affordable, and then completely ignored almost everything it said. This summer, I'm voting for whoever promises to actually implement the Housing Affordability Task Force report.

It's only considered a provincial responsibility now because the Fed Liberals of the 1990s completely got out of housing involvement with their big austerity budgets of the era. The Federal government was deeply involved in funding both for-profit and non-profit housing in the 1970s, the last era where Canada built a lot of housing.

The comment I was referring to was talking about red tape and zoning, though.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#467

Post by 52-6F-62 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

paulhart wrote: post #457

52-6F-62 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Densification is absolutely not unpopular with municipal voters! My current city, Hamilton, is currently fighting with the Ontario government over this matter. The mayor is a regular feature on the local news and speaks to that often. Their major push is for more density and resources for urban development. The provincial government has pushed for developing in Ontario's green belt and watershed instead. They've face…

Fellow Hamiltonian here... Council wasn't for intensification until they got the results of the poll back (and even then, the likes of Ferguson continue to be aghast at the idea of not being in the pockets of suburban developers). We can see that with the kneejerk response to Bill 109, and the fact that only one Secondary Housing Unit has been approved by the city so far, the rest denied for what seem like vague reas…

Man, that gets hard to swallow. Especially seeing old photos of Hamilton. I grew up nearby and for as long as I've been alive it's been large swathes of parking lots. There's still so much promise, but old downtown looked so much more alive before the sprawl took over.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#468

Post by tomatowurst » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

arrosenberg wrote: post #444

tomatowurst wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Vanc…

> Yes, one group of people got rich and now a different group of have-nots are mad at the people left holding the land.

Very much so and it probably stings even more for that have-not group, that its people from what they perceive to be of "third world origin". There's just no helping such people, instead of seeking ways to better themselves, they choose to live in a state of angst and anger and expect the government to somehow fix it.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#469

Post by bryanlarsen » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

pseudo0 wrote: post #110

bryanlarsen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price is set at the margin, especially in such an inelastic market as housing. "supply 100, demand 99, price goes down. Supply 100, deman 101, price goes up." 5% isn't a lot, but it could have a disproportionate impact. Housing isn't a federal responsibility, so the provinces are more to blame for the crisis. Ontario just totally whiffed implementing a report on how to reduce housing costs, so I expect the problem to…

The bigger issue is the multitude of exceptions. A ban on foreign buyers except for permanent residents, students, and recreational properties isn't much of a ban at all. Canadian permanent residency is incredibly easy to obtain, and students are frequently used as straw purchasers for their foreign parents (just look at the number of UBC students who own multimillion dollar homes despite having zero income). It also…

The loopholes are well known, so we'll see the sincerity of the government by looking into the details of the implementation, which we might not get today.

Re: Canada to ban foreigners from buying homes

#470

Post by 8note » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

heyitsanewacco wrote: post #263

macspoofing wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is such a huge deal. Is it though? I chatted with someone from Australia which has open bidding and you know what .. houses still went way over reserve. At the end of the day, if you have 20+ offers on a house, you're not getting that house without destroying your budget, no matter how you set up the bid system. The common sense change I wanted to see implemented was to prevent the waiving of a home inspection…

It is because Realtors are crooks. That's about it. We also had to tack down assignment clauses so that realtors wouldn't re-sell their client's houses for more and pocket the difference. I also want to see mandatory home inspection, seems common sense.

I'm more interested in mandatory house inspections at a regular intervals, rather than as part of a sale.