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Comment by diskcat | Hacker News Reader

>Ordinary middle class people and the young - make em rent! Why the sense of entitlement that people should be able to afford to buy a home

Why indeed?

If there is a shortage of housing, why not build more houses?

Otherwise, if a person wants to exclusively use a piece of land, why shouldn't he have to outbid everybody else?

Unless of course an 'ordinary middle class' and 'the young' are somehow more valued than 'rich chinese people' and so should be given special privileges?

>In fact put one giant price on the whole of Vancouver and sell it ALL in one big job lot.

Well not everybody wants to sell obviously but if everybody does want to sell, why shouldn't they sell to 'rich chinese people'? Why should they not be paid the most for what is rightfully their property?

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>> why not build more houses

Because the new houses built are intended to be bought buy people who have money at incredibly high prices.

This argument is the one the property developers put whenever citizens object to selling real estate overseas.

In effect "don't complain, just build us more houses to sell overseas! that will solve the problem"

> Because the new houses built are intended to be bought buy people who have money at incredibly high prices.

The demand is not infinite. If these new luxury houses actually do sell to the people who have the money to pay the incredibly high prices, what happens to the existing houses that were not purpose-built to sell to the rich? If the new houses satisfy even a part of the demand, prices on the existing houses have to drop.

If there is a demand for both high price housing and low price housing, there would be builders for both.

This is like saying "all the rich chinese are buying up all the expensive top end iphones and now all the poor people of the earth and the seas can not have smartphones for their enjoyment".

Again and again I see the same 'fixed size pie' argument when somebody argues for special privileges for the 'special class' that they conveniently belong to.

What about all the canadians who bought their house 4 years ago and now have their property price increased 200%? Nobody talks about those guys. You only hear the 'evil rich foreigner chinese taking up out houses' narrative. If you are a rich foreigner you are taking our houses and if you are poor then you are taking our jobs.

At the end of the day these narratives are just appeal to group-identity and nationalism. They are very thinly veiled attempt at enraging people to get more 'engagement' 'views' 'clicks' or whatever. And they are clearly working because people who are sensible otherwise start losing their minds.

Those who have seen their housing valuations triple still need to live somewhere. If they want to collect that profit (paper profits otherwise, with sometimes very real taxes), they must sell. They then have to buy a new place to live and surprise, that 200% profit disappears real fast when you have to pay 200%extra for a home...

> 'ordinary middle class' and 'the young' are somehow more valued than 'rich chinese people'

If the chinese people are of Chinese nationality then that is exactly true, from the perspective of the government of Canada.

> Well not everybody wants to sell obviously but if everybody does want to sell, why shouldn't they sell to 'rich chinese people'?

Because nurturing a foreign rentier class is not the best plan for retaining your sovereignty and keeping local people happy and wealthy?

> Because nurturing a foreign rentier class is not the best plan for retaining your sovereignty and keeping local people happy and wealthy?

I'm an Eastern European living in a relatively big Eastern European city, and I'm now writing this from an apartment that I'm a renting from a very cool French guy, the owner, who is in his late 50s or so. At the height of the local real estate bubble (in 2007) the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund invested in buying 500 apartments in a local project, the investment flopped (I don't petty the Norwegians, though, that fund is huge). And I could go on and on with other examples of foreign-owned properties in the city where I'm living in.

Point is, this is capitalism. I'm paying rent to the French owner of my apartment with the money I'm gaining from my current American oversees employer, and there's nothing wrong with that. You guys cannot choose which aspects of capitalism you want to like and which not, i.e. you cannot be allowed to invest freely in other parts of the globe (like Canada is now allowed to do) and in turn not allow other nations to invest in Canada (like not allowing Chinese real estate investors to buy property in Canada). Because if you do that you're economic colonialists.

"You guys cannot choose which aspects of capitalism you want to like and which not..."

Every country chooses which aspects of capitalism they want, via regulation, taxes, social programs. Even the most laissez-faire county does. There is no pure capitalism, it doesn't exist.

Most people are suggesting things like a non-occupied housing property tax, so people rent out unoccupied properties. And stronger money laundering enforcement so kleptocrats don't use housing as a bank account.

>You guys cannot choose which aspects of capitalism you want to like

Yes they can, all countries do this. Minimum wage laws, environmental protection laws, progressive taxation etc... All designed to restrict elements of capitalism we don't like.

>You cannot be allowed to invest freely in other parts of the globe

Their are all kinds of property restrictions on foreigners in many many countries. Until 6 months ago foreigners couldn't buy property in China without first living there for a year.

If a country wants to restrict foreign property purchases that's their business. They don't owe anything to other countries who let their citizens buy property. The reason those other countries allow foreigners to buy properties is not altruistic, it's to attract investment. They would continue to allow Canadians to buy homes even if Canada completely shut their citizens out. But if Canadians started driving up local home prices to the point that they are causing problems, they would add restrictions.

> The reason those other countries allow foreigners to buy properties is not altruistic, it's to attract investment.

So Canada doesn't want FDI, got it. Well, good for them, it means they're self sufficient.

It's interesting because when the going was good, meaning when Canada was making tons of money out of selling their mineral riches to China, I didn't use to hear so many bad stuff about the Chinese. Now, when some of those Chinese people want to invest their money back into Canada somehow it's bad for the middle class Canadians. I'm missing something, because I can't make sense of all this, but I'm just a programmer.

The situation is much more complicated then you are making it out to be. For one, this investment in high end residential property only really benefits a select few elites, not the general population. Of course it does generate some taxes - the debate is whether this small benefit is worth it considering the long term picture.

You're using the word "investment" to make it sound like they are starting local businesses that create well-paying long term jobs, grow the economy, and contribute to the community. The truth is that these houses sit empty 11 months of the year (or more).

Lastly, guess where that profit is going to end up when they sell? Not in the Canadian economy like it would have if a purchased by a Canadian. So again, is this a net gain? It's hard to say, but don't over simplify it.

Why does the perspective of the government of Canada matter?

Their perspective might as well be that canadian citizens are tax-cows to be milked until dry.

We should care about the people not the government.

I'm not the commenter, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that in this context, "Government of Canada" did also mean "the people of Canada".

It's not as solid of a distinction outside the U.S. where there is so much anti-government "them vs. us" mentality (rightly or wrongly).

If I say "the Government of Canada wants to legalize marijuana", it's generally safe to assume that is the will of the people unless evidence is presented to the contrary.

Of course, the government can and does occasionally go against the will of the people but that's more the exception than the rule.

> Unless of course an 'ordinary middle class' and 'the young' are somehow more valued than 'rich chinese people' and so should be given special privileges?

Citizens should be granted privileges over non-citizens.

Yes. The simplest way to solve all this is that you need to have been resident for > x years, or a national to be able to buy property. But governments won't bring that in until the bubble bursts because it'd burst the bubble prematurely.

They have been building, a lot actually. Condo prices as a result have been staying pretty stable until recently as a result. They need to build large condos that can take families although, something in the range of 1300-2000 sq ft and 3-5 bedrooms. And can handle kids jumping up and down and screaming/crying like they always do. Vast majority of condos are 1 or 2 bedroom places.

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