Canada banning foreign buyers

[SQUAD51]

I concur that little will happen.
Som of suggestions will never get traction.
Even the federal ban on foreign purchases is only temporary and then in three years its back. Isn't that special?
The real estate agents are always sought for their input when things get scary, which is the most moronic thing the media can do. The agents are little more than snake oil salesmen who have a financial vested interest in low supply, high demand and high prices. They will never have anything constructive suggestions for change.
Lets agree to stop asking them WTF, and just accept they need to make real estate sales an unattratcive career because ou will work harder for your money.

The most likely items that could get legislated in are
-Eliminate the loop holes for students of rich parents. If they are a student and dad can afford to buy a place, pay a tax equal to 100% of the profit from selling.
Sending your kids to university overseas should not be a money making enterprise.
-Empty house, pay a tax. The bigger the better.
-If you own a home that serves as a rental in the student slums of a university town, you pay 50% of the differencee between what you bought it for and sold it for.
-if you own a second residence thats a cottage, pay a vacant house tax.
-if you own several properties, either rent them out or let family live there for free, pay 50% tax when you sell.
-if you dont live here, you don't own here. Its time we insisted that home owners are invested in the community and not just their MP at election time. They need a place sporadically, they can get a long term lease.

I say this as someone who has watched and particpated in real estate speculation. In the 90"s i saw a lot of real estate agents walk away from $60K deposits on new homes they could not afford to close on or flip. A lot of builders took them to court and got damages.

There are good times and bad times for real estate, but we are in a time of unbridled greed and when the bubble pops, it will be a mess.

 

[Bored2022]

In 70s houses were $25000 so i think safe to hold for another 40 years

 

[Carvher]

My buddy is a property manager for well well funded Guys from India. They set up corporations in Canada for their buying, and if some new laws make things challenging, they will list my buddy as head of the corp. Canadian born citizen.

This is just smoke and mirrors.

Agree.
Also I noticed that students are exempt.
How difficult will it be for people to just buy it in their kids name?
It's like everything the government does. They talk the talk but don't walk the walk.
Do it right, ban all foreign ownership with no exceptions with severe penalties if caught .

 

[Jubee]

Neighbour works at OREA and said this is all a big joke and that big buyers have already snapped up the properties before this shit show of denying foreign money to buy, basically this is all just smoke and mirrors to make it seem like they're doing something about it.

 

[fall]

Exactly there is many ways to go around the ban.

What I would do is heavily tax empty houses and empty condo. Housing should become a right and not just a speculative item to make money on. You buy a house or a condo but leave it empty? You give 25k per year in tax... This would neglect the gain buyers expect to make.

As things go right now my retirement home will be in a small remote village in mexico. Hopefully near the sea. Because once I sell my house I won't be able to buy anything else anyhow...

You want to avoid empty houses? Make it easier for landlords to evict non-paying tenants and allow to have damage deposits. With current law I cannot blame people for keeping empty houses instead of renting them out.

 

[Scholar]

You want to avoid empty houses? Make it easier for landlords to evict non-paying tenants and allow to have damage deposits. With current law I cannot blame people for keeping empty houses instead of renting them out.

If you don't like the risks of real estate investment and being a landlord, liquidate your position and invest in something else. At least that would put more supply of homes on the market.

 

[fall]

If you don't like the risks of real estate investment and being a landlord, liquidate your position and invest in something else. At least that would put more supply of homes on the market.

I hope you understand that it will not solve the systematic problem: home owners do not want to put up their houses for rent because they are helpless against renters. Renter's protection works exactly the same way as minimal wage: it helps people who are renting now and do not wan to move (i.e., "workers who have a job") but hurts people who want to rent something else or first time renters (i.e., "unemployed" in my labour market analogy) since noone want to rent to them. I do not rent to anyone who does not have a steady job and making at last $100K. I do not care about credit rating - all I care is about stable paycheck my renters are getting. I would be wiling to rent to someone with lower income if I would be able to request a deposit and be able to evict them for non-payment withing a month or two (whatever their deposit covers) but, since I am not allowed to do it, I would rather have my rental property siting empty. What do you think leads to higher GDP: requesting that firms produce more product and sell it cheap or letting them decide how much to produce and charge? I think, the USSR example taught a valuable lesson about the command economy, but some people are too young to remember it.

 

[superstar_88]

Government likes high house prices. It makes Canadian banks very rich.

Is that a bad thing?

 

[Scopez]

Is that a bad thing?

For young Canadian's hoping to start their lives and have a place to live.

 

[superstar_88]

For young Canadian's hoping to start their lives and have a place to live.

His comment was specifically referring to making Canadian Banks very rich.

 

[sprite09]

at the end of the day, the underlying issue is the financialization of housing. and, investors who bought in london, NYC, LA, hong kong, seoul and other metropolitan cities were looking elsewhere for opportunities and it was canada's turn (namely vancouver and toronto).

but, the financialization of housing isn't gonna go away (even pierre poilievre and his wife own properties), so the mindset has to change that renting is OK (like in europe).

 

[Mencken]

People buying houses to rent them out - increases the supply of rental properties. Yet the same people lamenting this are complaining of a shortage of rental housing. And whether you believe it or not, the cost to rent is, over time, a supply and demand market. More rental properties will mean lower rents.

And all of the rules against foreign ownership, vacant houses, etc. will do squat. These are red herrings, things politicians grab for political points.

Overall it is more demand than supply. Our zoning rules, our nimby isms, our long times for development. And all the various "authorities" and levels of authority. If this could all be streamlined, and costs capped, there would be a vast increase in house, apartment, condo, development.

 

[CLOUD 500]

Nothing will change, this is all a charade just to show Trudeau is doing something. The reality is only a small portion of houses are owned by foreign investors. The real culprit is mass immigration. This is the main reason house prices and rents are so high. Too much rapid increase in demand due to rapid population growth but supply of houses are not keeping up pace, plus in Toronto they rent out their basements so many people who are able to afford to buy their new home can easily by other homes and give it for rent thereby using it as a business to make more money. Since 1975 the amount of new multi-unit apartment buildings built has been very less due to the government cutting subsidies and installing too many rules that protect tenants (rules that protect many bad tenants also) making it less attractive for investment. Trudeau's mass immigration policy turned building condos into a gold mine. Trudeau refuses to cut down on immigration as this is how he gains control of parliament (most immigrants give their vote to Trudeau because they want all their family members to come to Canada). Toronto is usually the first place immigrants go to, Trudeau has a special agreement with Indians and is making their immigration very easy. Since Trudeau got elected Indian immigration has surged to 200% more then before, Toronto is full of Indians, Brampton is almost all Indians. Any wonder there is a housing crisis. There needs to be a moratorium on immigration. Do not believe me? Look at history, every major city with excessive immigration suffered from a very high cost of living (London, UK and New York City among the examples). Ontario people like to give their vote to the Liberals handing Trudeau a win each time. Time to vote him out. He is the problem. One last thing to mention is also zoning rules, Canada has far too many rules making it hard and slow to build new houses making the situation worse plus the low interest rates and Trudeau printing too many bills thereby causing inflation. But the lefts contradiction is they want to densify cities and cause gentrification. In essence their goal is to turn Canadian cities into places like Shanghai, very densely populated over crowded cities with tall 50+ stories buildings everywhere and everyone drops their cars to use public transit (UN vision). Over population benefits government and corporations a lot as they make a lot of money off this.

 

[Anbarandy]

People buying houses to rent them out - increases the supply of rental properties. Yet the same people lamenting this are complaining of a shortage of rental housing. And whether you believe it or not, the cost to rent is, over time, a supply and demand market. More rental properties will mean lower rents.

And all of the rules against foreign ownership, vacant houses, etc. will do squat. These are red herrings, things politicians grab for political points.

Overall it is more demand than supply. Our zoning rules, our nimby isms, our long times for development. And all the various "authorities" and levels of authority. If this could all be streamlined, and costs capped, there would be a vast increase in house, apartment, condo, development.

There now, edited to reflect all the red herrings constantly, repetitively and incessantly stoked by the those < investors, real estate agents/brokers, developers, profiteers et al > that have raped and monetized the social compact of housing to house human beings.

Vomit whenever we hear the "informed expertise" of those who gladly profit from human misery.