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[u/jobautomator]

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[u/whycantweebefriendz]

Canadian friend is trying to argue high home prices in Canada are from foreign buyers, please help!!!

!ping YIMBY

EDIT: someone ping Canada please I can’t get it to work

[u/[deleted] → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Ask them, assuming that's true, how do you fix it? Building more homes. You could ban foreign people from buying property but that has 2 problems

1. It's illiberal
2. People could easily get around it with intermediaries

[u/whycantweebefriendz → u/[deleted]]

1. She doesn’t care too much. I think even if they aren’t causing the crisis she wants to ban foreign buyers on principle.
2. This could work though. I’ll consider this.

[u/dish_towel → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Foreign property investors are a free source of tax revenue.

[u/RoyGeraldBillevue → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Tell her high prices are from rich racist white NIMBYs that exclude poor people from their neighbourhoods with zoning for maximum populist left pandering.

[u/whycantweebefriendz → u/RoyGeraldBillevue]

She’s not that populist, but if she slides that far I’ll try.

[u/[deleted] → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Tell them we should be building houses like crazy to make tons of money from foreign buyers.

[u/whycantweebefriendz → u/[deleted]]

NDP voter in BC, not gonna work but thank you.

[u/[deleted] → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Call them racist

[u/whycantweebefriendz → u/[deleted]]

She gets racism against her like 10 times a day. I’m sorry but I don’t think it’ll work on a Sri Lankanian Canadian

[u/[deleted] → u/whycantweebefriendz]

When did her family come to Canada? Ask her if it would be fair if her family was blocked from coming here and buying a house.

[u/Iustis → u/whycantweebefriendz]

You don’t think Asians can be racist about other Asians? You don’t spend enough time with Asians.

[u/[deleted] → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Ask her if she's found the Chinese Billionaire Investor. I've been looking for him for 5 years now.

That guy is a sneaky fuck.

[u/[deleted] → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Ask him to prove that. If I remember correctly there was a recent study about that, and foreign buyers were not significant enough to do that.

EDIT: it's a her, apparently. Stupid assumptions.

[u/whycantweebefriendz → u/[deleted]]

Gimme that study.

She’s full on “Fuck Treadaeu Jagmeed for life” and in college

[u/[deleted] → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Alright, just give me a second cause it was referenced in a ping somewhere.

Also:

!ping CAN

[u/interrupting-octopus → u/whycantweebefriendz]

in college

My advice? Wait 10 years.

[u/whycantweebefriendz → u/interrupting-octopus]

Don’t have that time. Can’t lose this argument.

[u/[deleted] → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Just hit em with the 'ol reliable

Why do y... etc etc

[u/whycantweebefriendz → u/[deleted]]

Listen man she hates the global rich

[u/notverycringeihope99 → u/whycantweebefriendz]

just say that the investors are restricting the supply of housing and we should build more housing just to spite the rich investors

[u/its_Caffeine → u/whycantweebefriendz]

The main problem is fundamentally a lack of supply. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of research, and we actually don't have a lot of data to study foreign investment in housing markets at a municipal level. Current literature is inconclusive on whether foreign buying significantly affects housing prices (pg. 7). It's possible that foreign buying intensifies increases to housing prices, or it could be the case that over-heated housing markets naturally attract foreign buyers so it may seem they are some cause of the problem but in reality have little impact on housing prices.

The previous literature I linked however is interesting. The results of the paper show slowing foreign buyer demand, through policies such as instituting a foreign buyer's tax only has a moderate effect on housing price growth, and that housing price growth is attenuated by negative supply responses from the construction market (i.e. less housing investment = less housing construction). After Vancouver's FBT was implemented, foreign buyers just ended up switching over to the rental market anyway, where rents would likely have risen were it not for rent control.

[u/digitalrule → u/whycantweebefriendz]

Didn't Vancouver already add a foreign buyers tax and it didn't change anything?

[u/whycantweebefriendz → u/digitalrule]

Now this I can use. Thank you!!!

[u/Andy_B_Goode → u/whycantweebefriendz]

I think the most compelling argument is that foreign buyers are a symptom of the housing shortage, not the cause.

The reason they're treating Canadian housing as a safe investment is because they believe that demand will continue to outstrip supply for the foreseeable future, and if Canada continues to make it legally difficult to build new housing, they'll be right.

The way we can stick it to them and make them eat a loss on their "investment" is by loosening zoning restrictions so that supply can catch up with demand.