Luxury Homes Hitting the Canadian Market
Luxury Homes Hitting the Canadian Market
(Credit to rexxit user u/JackTheTranscoder)
Could this be the start of a big foreign ownership dump?
Wild idea but, maybe we should only allow people who live here to buy here.
Or maybe we could follow smarter countries who already solved this problem, like Finland, who charge much higher mortgage rates for those without citizenship.
That model is regressive against immigrants that have not attained citizenship. Those who are buying to mask assets or capture growth without doing anything are self financed or can secure loans via foreign institutions against other assets.
Just ban non-residents from purchasing or place limitations of what they can buy, e.g. 1 dwelling, not through a corporation, etc.
I think people who aren't very familiar with immigration simply don't know that permenant residency exists (what the US calls a green card, since pop culture makes that better known). When most people immigrate to Canada, they get permenant residency. Citizenship doesn't come till much later and many don't get it because it's just not necessary and some countries don't allow dual citizenship, so getting Canadian citizenship would mean giving up your other citizenship.
So yeah, permanent residency is likely the most reasonable requirement. There's also people with longer term temporary residency, like people on student visas or temporary foreign worker programs, but I don't think it makes sense to own housing as a temporary resident. They can rent, as many already do.
If there's a road to citizenship within 5 years I don't see the problem as as bad
It's not as if you are forced to buy - you can also live on rent for a couple of years and save up in order to buy a house afterwards.
Coupling it to citizenship is a good solution since it's impossible for 1 person to have houses in more than 1 or 2 countries - and not have houses in countries that they are not related to at all just for investment
1 dwelling is what I would pitch, but brainwashed Canadians will never vote for it.
OP did say "people who live here", not citizens... so that base seems kind of covered no?
I would also add that there needs to be proof of source of income for the purchase and/or mortage payments, with full employment background checks.
I have heard stories of houses purchased by a single person claiming "housekeeper" or "artist" as their income, mysteriously able to make huge mortgage payments or purchasing mansions outright. Turns out they were, of course, getting off-shore funds from a spouse or relative, and the job they claimed was just a sham.
The ones that need to take out a mortgage are the small fish.
Foreign investment into luxury homes is such a pest in the market anyway
Agreed. Some speculation online that China could be cracking down on rich citizens' foreign investments via Canadian + other nations housing, since that money could be lost if sanctions were ever imposed due to, for instance... invading Taiwan. Let's hope that isn't the reason...
I'd love for housing prices to go down for younger people to be able to afford something, but if it all crashes too quickly, it'll be really painful for everyone.
Ironically the reason they were investing overseas in the first place was because of the risk of losing the money in China.
If the housing market in China were to crash, surely the demand in Canada would increase, as it would be a more stable market. Perhaps I'm missing something here?
In this case, the owners of both are the same. My guess is, if one goes poof the owners struggle for liquidity, selling other assets.
Most of the people trying to find a home in canada arent also in the market for a home in china and vice versa.
This reads more like they expect to be forced to sell by legislation or other outside circumstances soon and want to try making more money before people lnow they have to exit soon.
Bitcoin should go up when USD and the economy crashes logically, but it goes down (also it's a ponzi scheme so it doesn't need to make sense). For the same reason this isn't true, people sell other assets when they take massive losses in one category and become insolvent. Liquidity and value of assets lower accross the board generally in this interconnected world economy of the modern era.
The pictured post is current. Link to post through nitter.net (twitter front end, no ads): https://nitter.net/TdLeaker/status/1692506526903066969
Most articles about I can find about the topic are from May to September of 2022, stemming from an internal Communist Party directive. (example article from WSJ: https://archive.is/G0yBV dated 5/19/22)
Hard to say what this is. Worth watching.
There’s a simpler explanation: demand has been very low due to rising interest rates, and supply is catching up the tiniest bit.
Then again, I’m not sure what the baseline for the number of luxury homes in the GTA should be. Is this more than average? By how much?
I’m not ruling out this unnamed source. Maybe the rumour is true. But I’ve also seen a lot of bad information spread online with too few people asking questions.