[DeBraid]

Not saying what is / isn't a bubble, but enjoyed this discussion here on Aussie / Canadian RE bubble. https://youtu.be/2MLZxJuzT5E?t=2802

Joe Walker: "Sydney and Melbourne are 2 of the most expensive cities in the world..."

Tyler Cowen: "AND THEY SHOULD BE! Great food, great views, relatively competent government. Are there 2 nicer places to live on Earth? Maybe these places are actually undervalued?"

Turns out really great places to live are extremely rare (Toronto, Vancouver) and expensive for good reason.

[gonzo41]

I got a day trip on Sydney harbour on a yacht a few years back. It was really nice. I can imagine a very expensive day for the host. I wish it was my yacht, because it was a real indulgence. Personally, I would have been pretty happy to just take the manly ferry a few times and have a sandwich.

Anyway, as we were boating about the proper harbour side mansions that sit close to the water. I noticed a few things. A lot of them were empty. I asked about this and the finance guys with us mentioned that most of them were land banking assets for Chinese money which isn't safe in CCP banks. I'm not sure how real this is, but if I owned a home on the waterfront in Sydney, I'd never leave the balcony.

Anyway, the effect is that rich foreigners own the places where our rich countrymen used to live. So now they've moved a street back and pushed all the upper middle class into the inner suburbs and now the regular professional folk our on the outer rim. And if you aren't rich, then your over mortgaged and live in a flood plain. Which just flooded.

Sydney is nice, but it's getting less nice, we generally need more cities in Australia. But what we really need is people to treat the family home as that. A place for families to grow and not some asset class.

[Clewza313]

Toronto isn't exactly a match for Sydney when it comes to climate or scenery though, and while Australian politics has its warts, the mayor of Sydney has yet to be caught on camera smoking crack.

[dv_dt]

That Cowen view is a very blasé view of inequality. So the great city to live ends up prices for the wealthy served by an underclass that lives in servitude, unable to ever own their own home.

And worse it’s that way for a super rich elite that buys assets and leaves them unused for most of the year.

[neilparikh]

> Great food, great views, relatively competent government.

The thing is, none of these things are a function of previous owner or landlord, so why should I be paying them for these great things?

Put another way, I'm honestly glad to pay lots of money to live in Toronto, because what I get for that is amazing. But I'd rather just pay that directly to the people who made the city great (the community as a whole), rather than someone who simply had the luck to buy at the right time.

[34679]

I've been saying for years that there should be a tiered system of property taxation based on the number of properties owned by an individual or entity.

It could be a simple as using a multiplier. Own 3 taxable properties? Your rate for each is 3x the base rate. Unsustainable? Great, lower the base rate.