Canada to ban foreign investors from buying homes

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https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/canada-bans-foreign-home-buyers-years-cool-market-83944087?fbclid=IwAR2aiY6Qkb5PEQiUO6q4FUoKnJQIS1FCJC8KqU0SDJmOudh4n7vrFe1mz8w

The U.S. should consider doing the same.

About bloody time. We should have banned it years ago.

Canada's always on the right track.

... or at least taxing foreign-owned real estate heavily. That might be better than outright banning it.

Alas, it will probably be difficult to get even a small tax on foreign real estate investments passed here in the U.S.A., because it would (horror of horrors!! !!) lower property values just slightly, at least in the short run.

Unfortunately, America's political system is dominated by property owners who believe they have a God-given right to eternally skyrocketing property values, and that said perceived right is ever-so-much more important than anyone else's completely nonexistent (in their view) right to have a roof over their head at all.

Jesus said, "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."

Here in the U.S.A., that would be "For the love of property values ...."

Investors, yes.

But not people who intend to use the property as a first or vacation home.

I wouldn't necessarily exempt vacation homes. I favor taxing (beyond basic property tax) any residential property that isn't actually occupied for most of the year -- especially if owned by foreigners or corporations, but also (perhaps a smaller tax) if owned by individual citizens.

There are way too many vacant houses and apartments that are being deliberately kept off the market by their owners. That's a significant cause of the housing crisis, at least here in NYC. So it needs to be strongly discouraged somehow.

This reduces demand so house prices will stabilise/go down.

Ironically while this will benefit younger Canadians who want to buy into the housing market, it will reduce house prices which negatively impact financially on home owners who want to sell their homes.

It's a nice start, now let's deal with the rest of the housing scalpers.

Not only do we allow foreigners to buy our real estate, we apparently have an enterprise "investor" program that can help them get green cards as a "thank you" for their purchase.

Baffling.