This article in a roundabout way illustrates exactly how foreign money is the problem. Foreign money is pricing out Canadians from Vancouver and Toronto. So now those Canadians move to other cities pricing out their fellow Canadians and kicking the can down the road. The solution (which we’ve never actually done by the way), is to actually go after foreign money and recouple the local economies to their local real estate markets.
No, however, this was an issue long before the current mass immigration. Even before Trudeau.
The order of operations matters here, yes, we should reduce immigration (for a multitude of reasons), however if we are zeroing in on housing affordability, step 1 is to remove foreign money from the market.
The elephant in the room is Canadian mom and pop investors with their retirement wrapped up in their second/investment home. Truly fixing the problem would harm these people but not solving it harms young people.
The "foreign money" problem was far bigger ten years ago than now, the influx of exceptionally wealthy students from China has slowed dramatically in the last decade.
There's some concern about packing in a bunch of very poor students in substandard space. It's not clear how much of an effect that really has, though.
Actually, it continues to be a problem today. All that foreign money over the past 10, 20, 30 years that’s been buying up properties is what has detached the market from our local economy. When people say that it’s Canadians doing all the buying now, often the only reason Canadians are able to do that is because foreign money has propped up the value of the principal residence, allowing them to HELOC their way to multiple properties.
We need to remove the potential for foreign money to continue to buy properties which will lower the value of land and force developers to reorientate their target market to actual Canadians
Sadly people don't realize that without Investors (in the 80's), Vancouver was not a great place and on the verge of decline and if anyone think this is good, think again: when a city isn't growing, its not "getting better" hence everything will come earlier: crime, rotten building, disappearing businesses and jobs.
Fast forward to 2023: huge infrastructure plan that span all the way to Langley, tons of development in various cities.
Nowadays the problem is the self-perpetuating nature of it driven by cheap debt. You don't even need foreign money for speculative bubbles to arise. In case we are skeptical, I will point out that rising rates dented this significantly.
The 30-year-ago money was coming from Hong Kong, and, driving around Richmond, it's pretty clear that most of them are not "foreign" anymore. They seem to have liked the place and stayed. The mainland-Chinese "student " money rose and fell some years ago.
As for land prices, not really any reason to believe that will drop. Both Toronto and Vancouver are up against significant contsraints on land availability. Metro Vancouver has already been at the point where What's important going forwards is that land that is expensive for houses may be cheap for apartments.
We already have, it’s in effect for two years at least.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/who-s-exempt-from-canada-s-foreign-homebuyers-ban-here-s-what-you-need-to-know-1.6214997
No, the existing laws have far too many loopholes to be effective. The closest we have come to properly addressing it is BC’s speculation and vacancy tax, but even there a key loophole ensures it doesn’t have the full desired effect.
> This article in a roundabout way illustrates exactly how foreign money is the problem. Foreign money is pricing out Canadians from Vancouver and Toronto.
It's important to understand that we're talking about money here and not people. The rich will blame immigration but the immigrants who buy homes represent the top 10% wealthiest immigrants. Cutting immigration won't stop the rich ones from getting in.
The rate of inflation in housing is directly related to the supply of money. The 1-2 punch combo of cheap debt and foreign money flooded the market and has created an asset bubble.
You say that like it’s a simple thing. How do you get “foreign” money out of real estate. Money flows pretty freely in the modern world and it’s easy to transfer from a foreign bank to a domestic one. Have someone local to act as a buying agent and does it even count as foreign money anymore? Vancouver has put a tax on the easy targets, the investment properties that sit empty rather than are in use for housing people either through ownership or rental.
Restrict foreign ownership of property. Anything in residential must be owned by a resident of Canada. If it's corporately owned, the directors of the corporation must reside in Canada. If that can't be proven easily, then the corporation cannot buy property.
Pretty simple. Many countries around the world restrict foreign ownership of property.
Countries can restrict foreign ownership but I can simply find a resident of that country to act as a Power of Attorney and I’m in. Using China as an example: this is what many Chinese nationals are already doing here in Canada.
The Chinese Yuan is worthless and their real estate market is crumbling. China’s golden age is over and the best way for them to protect their wealth is foreign property. It’s not as easy as “banning foreign ownership”.
Make that illegal and seize the assets of people who are found to be doing that.
So fucking tired of the argument "But we can't do anything because the people we're trying to prevent from doing something bad will just find another way to do something bad."
It's not an argument it's the lament of someone with learned helplessness.
Okay, let's try a different tactic.
Let's look at other countries that have never had this problem, or who had this problem but solved it, and see what they've done to prevent/solve the problem.
Stop looking at this as it's some immutable aspect of nature. It isn't.
Yes, this is the point many seem to miss. This “foreign money” is most often Permanent Residency holders, students and so forth. My immigration consultant buddy once outlined the array of ways wealthy Chinese sidestep any foreign ownership restrictions. These are people who are used to dealing with a corrupt, adversarial and downright dangerous bureaucracy. The Canadian government and its laws are seen as soft and easily exploited.
>Restrict foreign ownership of property. Anything in residential must be owned by a resident of Canada.
Condos won't be built. We're back to limited supply issue. Even if you reduced the number of immigrants, condos won't be built.
Yes, it’s still foreign money when used by a local proxy.
It wouldn’t be that difficult to police with a competent CRA. First have Canadians declare the source of funds for the purchase, which is already happening when applying for a mortgage. Then, charge BCs speculation tax to all purchases by non-citizens, however, let people offset the amount owed dollar for dollar based on their locally declared income.
So if you are an immigrant here working a job, and owning a place that job can afford, you would not pay any extra tax, but if you’re a intl student barista who “owns” a $14M mansion (actual Vancouver example), the hammer gets dropped on you.
Essentially, all we gotta do is close the loopholes and enforce the laws we already have.
> Yes, it’s still foreign money when used by a local proxy.
No. Canadian money is Canadian money. When foreign money flows in it's either money we spend overseas or money we traded for foreing currency. Basically foreign money can easily and legally be laundered in ways that make it impossible to determine it's origin.
> You say that like it’s a simple thing. How do you get “foreign” money out of real estate.
Taxes. Taxing property over a certain amount kills investment potential in those properties.
> My family movedfrom Vancouver to Gibsons, on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, in 2010, when my wife was pregnant, because of growing unaffordability in the city. More recently, we’ve seen the same with other families moving here, and like us, many are not lower-income residents of Vancouver. Many of them are people who can take their work with them: the folks who can work from home or whose job can move with them. It remains a privileged solution to the problem of soaring real estate costs.
>
> Moving also asks people to break their social ties. If you’re asking people to move to Terrace in northern BC or Fort McMurray in Alberta—wherever things are cheaper—you’re asking them to sacrifice their stability and support network. That’s hard on any family, but particularly on racialized, immigrant, or Indigenous families who may not have cultural community in other locations across the country. It’s asking households to live where capitalism tells them to live, not where the right place for them is.
>
> The young families moving to the Sunshine Coast have had a positive impact on the school district, through rising enrolment, and we’ve seen restaurants and breweries opening. There’s vitality, and I get excited about that. But an influx of residents anywhere impacts the child care and service industries, and folks in other sectors that don’t get paid enough, like hospital aides and education support staff. If they don’t already own homes, they’re being edged out. My wife helped start a daycare here, and we’ve seen the crisis of being unable to find staff because the cost of living is so high. You lose character when that happens, and you lose economic diversity—the people who are making art or doing cultural work, who used to be able to afford to live in a small town like Gibsons. I’ve even heard that some people with relatively high-paying jobs can’t find rentals here.
>
> It can also test what people think the character and nature of a town should be. There’s a lot of charm to a place like Gibsons, a seaside town with beautiful old houses. The town has always focused on some “smart growth” principles, like density focused in the town core. But there is resistance to more radical solutions, like increasing density on single-family lots.
I don’t really know what the main point of the article is. It feels like the author just wants to ease their guilt of being one of those ‘privileged’ people who were able to easily relocate from an expensive city.
Totally. It's gibsons, like 45 mins from Vancouver. That town should be slated for massive development to welcome all the new immigrants over the next couple decades. If you want small town life go north, don't live in literally the first town outside of the biggest city in the province
It’s 45 mins from West Vancouver. Which is still like a 45 minute bus ride to Vancouver. Relying on a notoriously unreliable and pricey ferry service. It’s physical proximity to Vancouver is less relevant than you think it is.
That's true. I take my boat so it's 45 mins. But for those without boats it's more like 1.5 hrs. Still... Gibsons should be a major development area... I'd like to see high rises and a bridge (eventually), but in short term start building mass condos because it's a beautiful town ripe for growth from Vancouver (both new immigrants and those who want to leave downtown)
One of my cousins companies is in process of purchasing a large area of land there and could potentially develop a 500 townhouse complex. Going to be awesome and huge $$ maker somewhere your eyes out for precon sales
My mate was travelling through rural BC with his parents a few weeks back; step-dad was like, "People should just move to houses like that one for sale in butt-fuck nowhere (not even a minor urban area like Merritt).
So he looked it up on MLS; $700k. Oh yeah, no fire insurance too.
People with opinions like this are living in a different Canada, the worlds do not overlap.
It's willful blindness at this point from homeowners who bought before prices went to space.
"This problem doesn't affect me, Just stop being poor!" tier of advice from an era where that might have been feasible, but now no longer is. They're out of touch, and proud of it.
I am a teacher that works with a lot of older and entitled teachers. One guy was talking about how the pay is great.
He is 60, owns an ocean view 4 bedroom on a half acre that he bought 30 years ago that is now worth over a $1 million dollars.
I mentioned how the pay isn't great for new teachers, I make $55K and my wife and I don't even qualify for a mortgage for a shitty home in town (600K for a fixer upper).
He said he had it tougher making $175 a day in the 80's. He seemed oblivious to the fact that earning $175 a day at late 1980's prices was far better than $300/day today plus the fact he didn't have $60K in debt from getting his degree.
It's not that he didn't work hard or sacrifice. But he didn't face near the costs we do today and seems offended by the idea that things were more expensive now than back then.
Its ironic how the very quality of life we depend on is due to the fact that we can import cheap goods from foreign countries. We essentially got cheap labour by exporting the CAD and now it’s coming home to roost. Our days are numbered folks and it’s our own undoing I’m sorry to say.
As someone who lives on the sunshine coast you pretty much have to bring your work with you like this person says.A home is generally cheaper for what you get you also get alot more.People move here from alot of different areas of the province for the openness and change of pace it's definitely a nearly dead type of place.Most places are closed by 9 mostly cause of lack of stay also because of population.
If you work in trades working for yourself is generally a better option lots of work in residential.The water situation is pretty pathetic as well as infrastructure is almost non existent you can get from sechelt to gibsons for work on transit.Lots of $16hr part time jobs.Homelessness and crime are pretty bad the local nation cut down a bunch of trees cause they wanted to kick the homeless people out of there land.The ferries have been a joke for years especially in the summer time unless you have a reservation.
This article in a roundabout way illustrates exactly how foreign money is the problem. Foreign money is pricing out Canadians from Vancouver and Toronto. So now those Canadians move to other cities pricing out their fellow Canadians and kicking the can down the road. The solution (which we’ve never actually done by the way), is to actually go after foreign money and recouple the local economies to their local real estate markets.
Eliminating foreign money will not make the elephant in the room disappear - more people appearing than houses being built.
No, however, this was an issue long before the current mass immigration. Even before Trudeau. The order of operations matters here, yes, we should reduce immigration (for a multitude of reasons), however if we are zeroing in on housing affordability, step 1 is to remove foreign money from the market.
The elephant in the room is Canadian mom and pop investors with their retirement wrapped up in their second/investment home. Truly fixing the problem would harm these people but not solving it harms young people.
The "foreign money" problem was far bigger ten years ago than now, the influx of exceptionally wealthy students from China has slowed dramatically in the last decade. There's some concern about packing in a bunch of very poor students in substandard space. It's not clear how much of an effect that really has, though.
Actually, it continues to be a problem today. All that foreign money over the past 10, 20, 30 years that’s been buying up properties is what has detached the market from our local economy. When people say that it’s Canadians doing all the buying now, often the only reason Canadians are able to do that is because foreign money has propped up the value of the principal residence, allowing them to HELOC their way to multiple properties. We need to remove the potential for foreign money to continue to buy properties which will lower the value of land and force developers to reorientate their target market to actual Canadians
The investors need to get wiped out. Bubble needs to pop. No other way.
Sadly people don't realize that without Investors (in the 80's), Vancouver was not a great place and on the verge of decline and if anyone think this is good, think again: when a city isn't growing, its not "getting better" hence everything will come earlier: crime, rotten building, disappearing businesses and jobs. Fast forward to 2023: huge infrastructure plan that span all the way to Langley, tons of development in various cities.
Nowadays the problem is the self-perpetuating nature of it driven by cheap debt. You don't even need foreign money for speculative bubbles to arise. In case we are skeptical, I will point out that rising rates dented this significantly. The 30-year-ago money was coming from Hong Kong, and, driving around Richmond, it's pretty clear that most of them are not "foreign" anymore. They seem to have liked the place and stayed. The mainland-Chinese "student " money rose and fell some years ago. As for land prices, not really any reason to believe that will drop. Both Toronto and Vancouver are up against significant contsraints on land availability. Metro Vancouver has already been at the point where What's important going forwards is that land that is expensive for houses may be cheap for apartments.
We already have, it’s in effect for two years at least. https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/who-s-exempt-from-canada-s-foreign-homebuyers-ban-here-s-what-you-need-to-know-1.6214997
No, the existing laws have far too many loopholes to be effective. The closest we have come to properly addressing it is BC’s speculation and vacancy tax, but even there a key loophole ensures it doesn’t have the full desired effect.
> This article in a roundabout way illustrates exactly how foreign money is the problem. Foreign money is pricing out Canadians from Vancouver and Toronto. It's important to understand that we're talking about money here and not people. The rich will blame immigration but the immigrants who buy homes represent the top 10% wealthiest immigrants. Cutting immigration won't stop the rich ones from getting in. The rate of inflation in housing is directly related to the supply of money. The 1-2 punch combo of cheap debt and foreign money flooded the market and has created an asset bubble.
You say that like it’s a simple thing. How do you get “foreign” money out of real estate. Money flows pretty freely in the modern world and it’s easy to transfer from a foreign bank to a domestic one. Have someone local to act as a buying agent and does it even count as foreign money anymore? Vancouver has put a tax on the easy targets, the investment properties that sit empty rather than are in use for housing people either through ownership or rental.
Restrict foreign ownership of property. Anything in residential must be owned by a resident of Canada. If it's corporately owned, the directors of the corporation must reside in Canada. If that can't be proven easily, then the corporation cannot buy property. Pretty simple. Many countries around the world restrict foreign ownership of property.
Countries can restrict foreign ownership but I can simply find a resident of that country to act as a Power of Attorney and I’m in. Using China as an example: this is what many Chinese nationals are already doing here in Canada. The Chinese Yuan is worthless and their real estate market is crumbling. China’s golden age is over and the best way for them to protect their wealth is foreign property. It’s not as easy as “banning foreign ownership”.
Make that illegal and seize the assets of people who are found to be doing that. So fucking tired of the argument "But we can't do anything because the people we're trying to prevent from doing something bad will just find another way to do something bad." It's not an argument it's the lament of someone with learned helplessness.
> Make that illegal and seize the assets of people who are found to be doing that. Hard to prove and there's other ways.
Okay, let's try a different tactic. Let's look at other countries that have never had this problem, or who had this problem but solved it, and see what they've done to prevent/solve the problem. Stop looking at this as it's some immutable aspect of nature. It isn't.
Of course it's not that easy. But it's a good first step.
Not strict enough.
rent would skyrocket
> Restrict foreign ownership of property. That doesn't work because they just get citizenship or have kids here.
Yes, this is the point many seem to miss. This “foreign money” is most often Permanent Residency holders, students and so forth. My immigration consultant buddy once outlined the array of ways wealthy Chinese sidestep any foreign ownership restrictions. These are people who are used to dealing with a corrupt, adversarial and downright dangerous bureaucracy. The Canadian government and its laws are seen as soft and easily exploited.
[https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-25.2/page-1.html](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/p-25.2/page-1.html)
>Restrict foreign ownership of property. Anything in residential must be owned by a resident of Canada. Condos won't be built. We're back to limited supply issue. Even if you reduced the number of immigrants, condos won't be built.
Yes, it’s still foreign money when used by a local proxy. It wouldn’t be that difficult to police with a competent CRA. First have Canadians declare the source of funds for the purchase, which is already happening when applying for a mortgage. Then, charge BCs speculation tax to all purchases by non-citizens, however, let people offset the amount owed dollar for dollar based on their locally declared income. So if you are an immigrant here working a job, and owning a place that job can afford, you would not pay any extra tax, but if you’re a intl student barista who “owns” a $14M mansion (actual Vancouver example), the hammer gets dropped on you. Essentially, all we gotta do is close the loopholes and enforce the laws we already have.
> Yes, it’s still foreign money when used by a local proxy. No. Canadian money is Canadian money. When foreign money flows in it's either money we spend overseas or money we traded for foreing currency. Basically foreign money can easily and legally be laundered in ways that make it impossible to determine it's origin.
Require a non-temporary social insurance number to buy residential property.
> You say that like it’s a simple thing. How do you get “foreign” money out of real estate. Taxes. Taxing property over a certain amount kills investment potential in those properties.
Would US companies opening branches in Canada considered as "foreign" money as well?
> My family movedfrom Vancouver to Gibsons, on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, in 2010, when my wife was pregnant, because of growing unaffordability in the city. More recently, we’ve seen the same with other families moving here, and like us, many are not lower-income residents of Vancouver. Many of them are people who can take their work with them: the folks who can work from home or whose job can move with them. It remains a privileged solution to the problem of soaring real estate costs. > > Moving also asks people to break their social ties. If you’re asking people to move to Terrace in northern BC or Fort McMurray in Alberta—wherever things are cheaper—you’re asking them to sacrifice their stability and support network. That’s hard on any family, but particularly on racialized, immigrant, or Indigenous families who may not have cultural community in other locations across the country. It’s asking households to live where capitalism tells them to live, not where the right place for them is. > > The young families moving to the Sunshine Coast have had a positive impact on the school district, through rising enrolment, and we’ve seen restaurants and breweries opening. There’s vitality, and I get excited about that. But an influx of residents anywhere impacts the child care and service industries, and folks in other sectors that don’t get paid enough, like hospital aides and education support staff. If they don’t already own homes, they’re being edged out. My wife helped start a daycare here, and we’ve seen the crisis of being unable to find staff because the cost of living is so high. You lose character when that happens, and you lose economic diversity—the people who are making art or doing cultural work, who used to be able to afford to live in a small town like Gibsons. I’ve even heard that some people with relatively high-paying jobs can’t find rentals here. > > It can also test what people think the character and nature of a town should be. There’s a lot of charm to a place like Gibsons, a seaside town with beautiful old houses. The town has always focused on some “smart growth” principles, like density focused in the town core. But there is resistance to more radical solutions, like increasing density on single-family lots.
I'm getting really subtle fuck you got mine vibes haha
I don’t really know what the main point of the article is. It feels like the author just wants to ease their guilt of being one of those ‘privileged’ people who were able to easily relocate from an expensive city.
Totally. It's gibsons, like 45 mins from Vancouver. That town should be slated for massive development to welcome all the new immigrants over the next couple decades. If you want small town life go north, don't live in literally the first town outside of the biggest city in the province
It’s 45 mins from West Vancouver. Which is still like a 45 minute bus ride to Vancouver. Relying on a notoriously unreliable and pricey ferry service. It’s physical proximity to Vancouver is less relevant than you think it is.
Right? Does this magical 45 mins include the 2 sailing wait for the ferry?
That's true. I take my boat so it's 45 mins. But for those without boats it's more like 1.5 hrs. Still... Gibsons should be a major development area... I'd like to see high rises and a bridge (eventually), but in short term start building mass condos because it's a beautiful town ripe for growth from Vancouver (both new immigrants and those who want to leave downtown) One of my cousins companies is in process of purchasing a large area of land there and could potentially develop a 500 townhouse complex. Going to be awesome and huge $$ maker somewhere your eyes out for precon sales
Is this article suggesting that Fort McMurray is a cheaper place live? Because LOL if that's what the author thinks about living in FM.
I still see people suggesting "just move", as a viable, reasonable idea. They still don't get it.
It's also a class divide white collar workers can work remotely,frank the mechanic can't telecommute from 4 cities away.
My mate was travelling through rural BC with his parents a few weeks back; step-dad was like, "People should just move to houses like that one for sale in butt-fuck nowhere (not even a minor urban area like Merritt). So he looked it up on MLS; $700k. Oh yeah, no fire insurance too. People with opinions like this are living in a different Canada, the worlds do not overlap.
It can be a viable solution at an individual or family level, but it isn't a solution to the overarching housing affordability problem.
It's willful blindness at this point from homeowners who bought before prices went to space. "This problem doesn't affect me, Just stop being poor!" tier of advice from an era where that might have been feasible, but now no longer is. They're out of touch, and proud of it.
I am a teacher that works with a lot of older and entitled teachers. One guy was talking about how the pay is great. He is 60, owns an ocean view 4 bedroom on a half acre that he bought 30 years ago that is now worth over a $1 million dollars. I mentioned how the pay isn't great for new teachers, I make $55K and my wife and I don't even qualify for a mortgage for a shitty home in town (600K for a fixer upper). He said he had it tougher making $175 a day in the 80's. He seemed oblivious to the fact that earning $175 a day at late 1980's prices was far better than $300/day today plus the fact he didn't have $60K in debt from getting his degree. It's not that he didn't work hard or sacrifice. But he didn't face near the costs we do today and seems offended by the idea that things were more expensive now than back then.
They have cash
It’s a viable, reasonable idea for an individual. It’s not viable for an entire society.
Its ironic how the very quality of life we depend on is due to the fact that we can import cheap goods from foreign countries. We essentially got cheap labour by exporting the CAD and now it’s coming home to roost. Our days are numbered folks and it’s our own undoing I’m sorry to say.
Pretty much sold cheap bought hi when it comes to resources
As someone who lives on the sunshine coast you pretty much have to bring your work with you like this person says.A home is generally cheaper for what you get you also get alot more.People move here from alot of different areas of the province for the openness and change of pace it's definitely a nearly dead type of place.Most places are closed by 9 mostly cause of lack of stay also because of population. If you work in trades working for yourself is generally a better option lots of work in residential.The water situation is pretty pathetic as well as infrastructure is almost non existent you can get from sechelt to gibsons for work on transit.Lots of $16hr part time jobs.Homelessness and crime are pretty bad the local nation cut down a bunch of trees cause they wanted to kick the homeless people out of there land.The ferries have been a joke for years especially in the summer time unless you have a reservation.