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by atemerev 3604 days ago
Vancouver is Canada, with lots of undeveloped spaces available. It is not Manhattan or Hong Kong (not that Manhattan is some sacred land too that everybody should live there). It can be safely increased in size many times.

But some might say this will drive property prices down? Mission accomplished!
2 comments
miraj 3603 days ago
>> Vancouver is Canada, with lots of undeveloped spaces available......It can be safely increased in size many times.

- That is not correct. Vancouver proper is hampered re: expansion because of mountains and sea. It has limited availability of lands for development. Only way it can meet demand for housing is via vertical (i.e. condos) vs. horizontal (i.e. houses) ecpansion. But there is substantial local resistance to highrises, especially outside the downtown/west end area.

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raquo 3604 days ago
That's ridiculous, a city growing in size or density will never see decreased property prices. This will actually increase the prices because the city is now a more "desirable" place to be (for some).

Foreign money is a real problem, there is no way around it. If you want your city's housing market to be a wide open safe haven for everyone in the world to park their money in, you're going to push out the locals because these investors' demand for housing does not increase locals' incomes, it only increases housing prices.

In Canada this problem is especially bad because of immigration loopholes for the rich. For vast majority of Vancouver properties it actually costs less to buy permanent residency via Quebec's immigrant investor program (~$100K in interest payments, no other requirements) than to pay this stupid 15% tax. Just let that sink in for a minute.

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atemerev 3604 days ago
And what is the problem with this? The local benefits in property taxes will be enormous.

I live in Geneva, Switzerland. We are welcoming rich immigrants.

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raquo 3604 days ago
$3000 CAD per year per condo/house is very small consolation given all the negatives.

For example, just one of the many problems – a foreigner buys residency ($100K paid to Quebec, not BC), buys a house here, then continues to run his business in China, while their family moves into the house full time. Then their family uses up social services like universal healthcare, public schools and universities, while collecting low-income tax rebates because the breadwinner is not a Canadian tax resident, and does not need to declare their global income.

That's not some thought exercise, it's a very common occurrence here. So the rest of Canadians end up paying taxes to finance all this, and get inflated housing costs as a bonus. I don't see how that's a good outcome.

I've no idea how things work in Switzerland, but they don't work in Canada with our current laws.

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