Golden Visas

[MetEishYa]

Watched the WAN show and found it odd that Linus and Luke mocked Malta for being able to "Buy" citizenship, them not be aware that this practice is pretty common. A lot of countries actually have these type of Visas, they called Investment Visas or more common name Golden Visa. The US, Canada, UK, Sweden and a lot of other have the similar type of visas. For Quebec its $1.2 million (CAD) QUEBEC, for the UK its 2 Million GBP  UK. You get a visa either permanent or for a long period then can apply for permanent citizenship.

[Blue4130]

As much as they want it to be true, Quebec isn't a country. 

[TetraSky]

26 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

As much as they want it to be true, Quebec isn't a country. 

Trust me, NOBODY wants it to be true other than old people still living in "the dream" and the brainless who don't even vote yet complain about politic. 

 

Honestly this whole buying a visa with money is bullcrap and is the reason why we're stuck with a lot of Chinese nationals coming in and buying up every god damn houses/condo, raising housing prices up to insane levels. A studio apartment these days go for over 1000$ even in the poor neighborhoods of Montreal just because "it's renovated", even though it was like 450$ less than 5 years ago.
Our family also got kicked out by some Chinese nationals who bought the apartment complex we were living in, he put his "family" in it for a year(it's the law that they can't kick us out unless its for their family for a minimum of 1 year), after that he "renovated it" and now I'm seeing the same apartment for 4x the price we were paying.

[Guest]

The locals dont tend to be too fond of people who buy citizenships. It seems like a mockery. 

[Andreas Lilja]

On 9/23/2019 at 10:21 AM, Blue4130 said:

As much as they want it to be true, Quebec isn't a country. 

Not a big upgrade from nation to country. 

 

Thx Stevie.

[Donut417]

17 hours ago, floofer said:

ocals dont tend to be too fond of people who buy citizenships.

If they can pay for citizenship then they can afford to pay taxes and not have welfare and live on the backs of us working stiffs.

[wasab]

If everyone move out of the neighborhood and none is left to live there, the property price will crash. Problem solved. 

[Donut417]

6 minutes ago, wasab said:

If everyone move out of the neighborhood and none is left to live there, the property price will crash. Problem solved. 

Or Wall street fucks up again. 

[Andreas Lilja]

19 hours ago, floofer said:

The locals dont tend to be too fond of people who buy citizenships. It seems like a mockery. 

IIRC Québec plan is a major waste of resources since most move to BC in Ontario after. 

[williamcll]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

If everyone move out of the neighborhood and none is left to live there, the property price will crash. Problem solved. 

But where?

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, williamcll said:

But where?

To where the immigrants come from. So since it's mostly Chinese using the investment visa program, let's move to China

[wasab]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

To where the immigrants come from. So since it's mostly Chinese using the investment visa program, let's move to China

Right. Go return the favours by buying Chinese properties and drive their prices up. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Donut417 said:

If they can pay for citizenship then they can afford to pay taxes and not have welfare and live on the backs of us working stiffs.

You'd be surprised. 

[dizmo]

It costs next to nothing to "buy" citizenship in the US. You just have to set up a business and employ something like 3 or more US citizens, and you'll get a green card.

Still, generally when someone gives a government millions of dollars, they're giving them more than you ever will.

 

On 9/23/2019 at 8:45 AM, TetraSky said:

Trust me, NOBODY wants it to be true other than old people still living in "the dream" and the brainless who don't even vote yet complain about politic. 

 

Honestly this whole buying a visa with money is bullcrap and is the reason why we're stuck with a lot of Chinese nationals coming in and buying up every god damn houses/condo, raising housing prices up to insane levels. A studio apartment these days go for over 1000$ even in the poor neighborhoods of Montreal just because "it's renovated", even though it was like 450$ less than 5 years ago.
Our family also got kicked out by some Chinese nationals who bought the apartment complex we were living in, he put his "family" in it for a year(it's the law that they can't kick us out unless its for their family for a minimum of 1 year), after that he "renovated it" and now I'm seeing the same apartment for 4x the price we were paying.

We'd have Chinese nationals coming in regardless of being able to buy a Visa. There are loads of ways to get in other than that. If you live in a desirable area, your rents are going to go up. Period. There will always be people, even within the same country, that will make more money than you and want to live in that area. That's why Edmonton's rental rates are relatively flat, give a small increase yearly for inflation.

 

Obviously if you renovate something, you'll charge more. Even huge rental companies do the same thing with their units.

On 9/23/2019 at 1:32 PM, comander said:

If it makes you feel better, a lot of American/Canadian born Chinese complain about Chinese nationals buying up stuff. 

At the end of the day, it's a supply and demand problem. Zoning laws should probably be done on a national level, as they are in Japan and building needs to get under way. 

No housing shortage if you magically have 30% more housing in 10 years and a similar population. 

The only thing you can really do is ban foreigners from buying property, like New Zealand does. There's simply too many millionaires in rapidly developing countries like China. You won't be able to stop them from buying up "cheap" property that they actually own. A lot of places that are desirable simply don't have a way to expand housing that much.

2 hours ago, wasab said:

If everyone move out of the neighborhood and none is left to live there, the property price will crash. Problem solved. 

Not necessarily. If people don't live there it really has little to do with property value as long as the property is still owned.

Perfect example is Vancouver, where the richest neighborhoods are often left empty.

[dizmo]

4 hours ago, comander said:

Assuming the units ARE rented out there's relatively little impact on property valuations and rental prices whether a unit is owned by Chinese nationals, a real estate private equity firm (think Irvine company) or ordinary citizens. 

Vacancy fees, which ramp over time, CAN be implemented. 

At the end of the day if there are only 100 small rooms available for 150 people, you're going to have high prices and multiple occupancy situations. 
The solution isn't "ban foreign investment" (spoiler: FDI often HELPS), it's to make more housing. If there were 200 rooms available for 150 people, prices would plummet, and you might even end up with a situation where people have offices and

 

https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning-more-liberal-than-us-zoning/

 

Again, I reference Japan. They went from HORRIBLY PRICED to somewhat reasonable in a relatively short span. 

They aren't. Units purchased by foreign nationals are simply left vacant, or lived in enough of the year for it not to count as "vacant". On top of that, it's often still worth it to simply pay the very high taxes imposed on empty properties. I know this because that's what my ex's parents would do; they owned 3 multi-million dollar properties in Vancouver, and they spent a great deal of their time in China.

 

You only have so much space. You often can't add more housing, and Vancouver, again, is a great example of this.

[Andreas Lilja]

Just put a heavy tax of foreign real estate speculation, especially from China. Problem solved.

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, comander said:

If construction rates are sufficiently high, real estate will depreciate or at the very least appreciate at such a rate that other investments are better. This would discourage foreign investment. 

 

Build UP. Improve transportation infrastructure as needed. Liberalize zoning such that mixed use is viable (reduces need for transit).

Ultimately the issue with your reasoning is that you're attacking a symptom - "people are buying up real estate as an investment because of the current state of supply and demand" as opposed to attacking the underlying issue "the current supply and demand dynamics are out of whack"

In a hypothetical world where every single story house was bulldozed and replaced with a 30 story apartment complex, there would be so much housing it'd be ridiculous. You'd be able to fit half the population of Canada into the current area (this assumes an overall 20x increase in dwelling space) OR give every resident 20x their current living space. Price per square foot would plummet. 

Let's take the opposite approach for laughs... what do you think would happen if 95% of the buildings in Vancouver was slated for destruction? What would happen to the pricing of the remaining 5%? 

Building up and increasing the housing market doesn't always help. Again, case and point, Vancouver and the GVRD. They're currently adding well in excess of 20,000 new units of housing across a handful of multi-billion dollar projects, but guess what? They're still selling out well over the $500k mark. Now, for sake of argument, say you had 5% of Chinese millionaires buying 1 unit each (I know several that have several properties, so the numbers should even out). That's 175,000 units of housing. If you have a desirable area where land values are good, they don't even have to be great, and you have countries where you can't own your own land, like China, then foreign investment will always be a problem.

 

The problem is that the housing isn't being purchased to live in, it's being purchased as a place to bank money.

 

Also, you can't simply say build up everywhere. It's simply not what people want. The majority of people want actual houses with land, not a box in the sky.

[dizmo]

3 hours ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Just put a heavy tax of foreign real estate speculation, especially from China. Problem solved.

Not really. They'd just pay it.

[Blue4130]

14 hours ago, comander said:

 

In a hypothetical world where every single story house was bulldozed and replaced with a 30 story apartment complex, there would be so much housing it'd be ridiculous. You'd be able to fit half the population of Canada into the current area (this assumes an overall 20x increase in dwelling space) OR give every resident 20x their current living space. Price per square foot would plummet. 

No need to be hypothetical, I live in Beijing. There are no single dwilling houses within the city. It's all skyrises. Population = 20 million. Price per square meter? Through the roof. They keep building more, but it doesn't matter, people keep moving to the city. 

 

Shanghai, same thing. As well as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and many others. 

[wasab]

6 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

No need to be hypothetical, I live in Beijing. There are no single dwilling houses within the city. It's all skyrises. Population = 20 million. Price per square meter? Through the roof. They keep building more, but it doesn't matter, people keep moving to the city. 

 

Shanghai, same thing. As well as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and many others. 

In the meanwhile, government keeps on building ghost cities in the middle of deserts and other nowheres hoping these will sell. 

[Blue4130]

35 minutes ago, wasab said:

In the meanwhile, government keeps on building ghost cities in the middle of deserts and other nowheres hoping these will sell. 

That's not the government though, that's corrupt property developers. 

[wasab]

50 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

That's not the government though, that's corrupt property developers. 

These properties do not sell. How are they going to make money off it? Answer: government keeps handing them these contracts. 

[Andreas Lilja]

17 hours ago, dizmo said:

Not really. They'd just pay it.

There's a point where it becomes less lucrative than bonds or stock.

 

We also have an immigration issue, ~45 % settle in Vancouver or Toronto, while there is a huge labour scarcity.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, Andreas Lilja said:

There's a point where it becomes less lucrative than bonds or stock.

 

We also have an immigration issue, ~45 % settle in Vancouver or Toronto, while there is a huge labour scarcity.

Real estate is a lot more stable than the stock market. It's not so much about making money as it is having your money stored outside of China. 

 

Labour scarcity isn't so much an issue with immigration as it is what people are choosing to do with their lives. There simply aren't as many people interested in trades. Even those that do come in under labour visas move on to other things once they obtain their PR.