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Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

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Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#71

Post by wisty »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #25
cbs wrote: post #24

$500,000? The number of people for whom visas are the only barrier to buying a home in the USA and would spend over 500k on one is probably way too small to have any real impact on the housing market. Why not $5k? There are plenty of houses going for dirt cheap in the parts of the country hit the worst by the recession. It would mean more people taking advantage of the program and selling that cheap housing would hav…

Because they clearly don't want immigrants from the bottom of the socioeconomic status of other countries.

And they don't want immigrants buying a $5,000 house, then abandoning it to rent a closet in California.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#72

Post by [deleted] »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #58
FilterJoe wrote: post #41

I'll go out on a limb here and say I like the basic idea. One major detail I would change is to make it a $100,000 or $50,000 minimum instead of $500,000. There are many parts of the country where it's hard to even find a house that's as expensive as $250,000. I'd like something like this to be open to all parts of the country and I'd like it to be open to middle class as well, not just wealthy people. Why do I like…

Well, the places where it's super hard to find a house at 500k, and somewhat easy at 100k, are the border states... New Mexico, Arizona, Texas (and Nevada). In these places, the 500k house is going to be the cream of the crop... the top 1%. Southern California is a different issue, but this isn't going to help the places where the housing market really took a shit, like Nevada and Arizona, because the market there is…

[deleted]

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#73

Post by OstiaAntica »

temphn wrote: post #52
9999 wrote: post #22

Give me your energetic, your rich, Your striding elite yearning to oppress, The vaunted gild of your desolate shore. Send these, the landowners, first-class-turbulence-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the door for those with gold!

America is broke. If you want to tax the rich you need to let them into the country. And people buying a house aren't that rich anyway. Besides, this is very similar to the immigration policy of Canada or Singapore, which also give points if you buy property and start a business in the country. Their economies are vastly outperforming ours and it might be worth emulating them.

Even with the current slowdown, U.S. per capita GDP is much higher than Canada's. Singapore, as an island city-state, isn't really comparable to the U.S. It is more like Manhattan, and the government in Singapore can implement fairly heavy-handed policies that are not feasible on a continental US-scale.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#74

Post by yummyfajitas »

temphn wrote: post #52
9999 wrote: post #22

Give me your energetic, your rich, Your striding elite yearning to oppress, The vaunted gild of your desolate shore. Send these, the landowners, first-class-turbulence-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the door for those with gold!

America is broke. If you want to tax the rich you need to let them into the country. And people buying a house aren't that rich anyway. Besides, this is very similar to the immigration policy of Canada or Singapore, which also give points if you buy property and start a business in the country. Their economies are vastly outperforming ours and it might be worth emulating them.

Although Singapore is outperforming our economy (on a per-capita basis), Canada is not. Why do you believe emulating them will get us Singapore-like benefits rather than Canada-like harms?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#75

Post by brudgers »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #67
MiguelHudnandez wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would extend the offer only to those that spend half a million dollars on a home. I have a feeling that excludes most of the Canadians bargain hunting for property in Phoenix.

You misread, it is only $250,000 for the first home, and the rest can be investment.

I didn't realize there was a slumlord shortage.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#76

Post by sliverstorm »

mbreese wrote: post #61
nobody314159 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New science, engineering, medical graduates who have just finished a US degree/masters/PhD?

I'm pretty sure that they can (or will) buy a house... Maybe not on the coasts, but as a grad student, I could buy a house in Indiana.

Well, not the ones planning to go home. But perhaps a more welcoming route to becoming a citizen would help keep some of the ones leaving upon completing their degree.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#77

Post by nobody314159 »

gopi wrote: post #45

I am not sure why many people are upset that this will attract the rich foreigners. Whats wrong with rich people moving in?. Think how much new tax revenue the country will gain if 10000 millionaires move every year

Very little - millionaires tend not to pay much tax. Especially foreign ones whose income is difficult to trace.

What happened in Vancouver when Canada did the same thing is that people bought the houses as an insurance so they had an escape route if Honk Kong went bad. Most of the houses either sat empty, were rented out, or the kid was dumped there to go to college.

It did a lot for the local housing market - not clear it did quite so much for local entrepreneurial growth.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#78

Post by sliverstorm »

brudgers wrote: post #75
OstiaAntica wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misread, it is only $250,000 for the first home, and the rest can be investment.

I didn't realize there was a slumlord shortage.

In most of the country, $250,000 is quite a nice house. Let your mind think outside the Bay Area every now and again.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#79

Post by Cushman »

temphn wrote: post #52
9999 wrote: post #22

Give me your energetic, your rich, Your striding elite yearning to oppress, The vaunted gild of your desolate shore. Send these, the landowners, first-class-turbulence-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the door for those with gold!

America is broke. If you want to tax the rich you need to let them into the country. And people buying a house aren't that rich anyway. Besides, this is very similar to the immigration policy of Canada or Singapore, which also give points if you buy property and start a business in the country. Their economies are vastly outperforming ours and it might be worth emulating them.

The Fed is broke. America is as rich as ever.

We were taxing the rich progressively for decades and doing great as a country. The past decade has been great for the rich, but horrible for the country. The number one factor preventing investment today is not taxes, but lack of confidence brought about by a crippled economy brought about by haphazardly lowered taxes.

How Congress managed to convince us this is a moral issue instead of one of straightforward math I'll never understand.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#80

Post by amritsharma »

I'm not sure who will take "advantage" of this program - - $500,000 CASH investment - You get a 'resident visa', so you can not work here Source: WSJ.

How about we give incentives to people already in this country?

I propose: You get priority processing on your green card application if you buy a house worth more than $150k, and you can't sell for at least 3-5 years.

Disclosure: I'm on the H1B visa. I bought a house last year while the 'first-time home buyer' $8k credit was available.

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