There isn't much room for California to raise income or sales taxes, which means property taxes are next. A popular referendum will modify prop 13 and the State will inch up property taxes little by little, buoyed by one widely-publicized, world-is-ending, save-the-children 'crisis' after another (first health care, then pensions, and after that, your guess is as good as mine). In reply to your question: they will be busy taxing everybody, not just foreigners.
To discourage foreigners buying property? A giant reason for home prices in California being so high are all the regulations restricting zoning, building codes, etc. Real changes would never really happen to "increasing affordable" homes really, as no rational homeowner wants to see their home values decrease.
On the side for demand, it's clear California's coast is the "chic" place for people to be. Not to mention relatively safe investment spot to stash foreign money away.
I agree with you if the OP is suggesting a tax on foreign born Americans.
On the other hand, if the OP is talking about foreign non-Americans, I'm not sure I automatically believe that they have an absolute right to access or participate in the US real estate market.
>On the other hand, if the OP is talking about foreign non-Americans, I'm not sure I automatically believe that they have an absolute right to access or participate in the US real estate market.
But of course they can - in your view - participate to it, as long as they are willing to pay a premium surcharge.
Well, yes I should have been more clear. My main contention was that those who aren't American shouldn't necessarily be allowed to participate in the US real estate market under the same terms as Americans are allowed to.
I'm not nearly knowledgable enough on the topic to know what the overall effect on the RE market would be if such a foreign tax was instituted, but assuming it was found to be favorable, I wouldn't consider such a tax to be some great injustice.
What if the foreigner is living and working in the US? Is he allowed to play with the same rules as american citizens? Only on the property market, or also for renting? Other markets affected? Should we also be doing the same in our countries, namely disincentive foreign (also american) investment? Also from american companies?
The US has already huge geopolitical advantages (the dollar for starters, and massive stock-holding in companies around the world, some of them acquired with doubtful means - read "wars"). You have elected a president with the explicit goal of increasing the game-rigging in your favor, now that you are not winning (I expressly do not write "loosing") as much as you used to.
We have now other countries which are starting to profit from globalization, fact which has been used a selling point of capitalism by the US in order to secure neo-liberal agenda in international organizations for decades: "capitalism is good because it allows everybody to improve their life standards by working hard".
If the US continues on this course of "our way or the high way", I guess we will all loose, but the US has a lot to loose too. International trade can be closed by other parties too, we can expropriate ownership of foreign nationals on companies operating in our territories, we can increase legal burden of foreign companies operating here, ...
Keep on playing the game, even when you are not winning, and stop changing the rules mid-game - rules which were written mainly by you and your cronies.
I tried to make it clear in my previous comment that I didn't necessarily support such a tax, but I don't find anything inherently wrong with a country, any country, limiting or otherwise taxing foreign real estate ownership.
I would expect that any legal resident of the US would be exempt from such a tax, not just citizens, if they weren't, I would have a problem with the tax even if it had the desired affect of lowering housing prices. But again, I want to stress that I don't have the knowledge to determine this.
As to what other countries should do, I have no idea. Certainly I believe they have every right to determine that for themselves. I believe some countries do have varying requirements or limits on foreign land/RE ownership. Perhaps I am mistaken.