Money invested from abroad is money coming inside the economy - whether the person lives there or not. That money goes to the seller, who'll then get taxed on it, spend it somewhere else... Or that money could be used, as I said, to build new buildings and rehabilitate old ones, thus creating jobs in the process. If the system was well set up for it, foreigners investing in a country is usually a good thing. The US is super foreign-investment friendly for example, doesn't hurt them.
Besides, if foreigners are investing solely to speculate - if they did fix the supply constraints, the opportunity for speculation would greatly decrease. It's only an attractive investment because the supply is so finite.
Alternatively, I got my current house because of KYC laws.
The house bidding was originally won by someone abroad. They overbid the house by a lot. However, because of the KYC laws, that person needed to proof their income is legitimate, which they couldn’t. Therefore, we got the house.
Building new houses costs 10 years in my country. So building new houses is not fast enough to create new affordable houses.
To be fair, you're referring to one of the largest and fastest-growing economies in Canada [1]. (It also has a massive affordability crisis despite a ban on non-student foreigners buying expensive real estate.)
Half the people in Vancouver are thinking about leaving and 25% want to leave within the next 5 years. People are leaving in droves largely because of costs. That seems to make the parents point - that the ecnomic benefits from immigration accrue to the few and the wealthy while making life harder for average people
I can sympathize with it because I live in Toronto and am also thinking about leaving. Do I hate immigrants, no there aren't actually that many immigrants in the city core where I live. But certaintly there is an affordability crsis that has gripped the city and the country and wages seemed to be supressed and there seems to be less job opportunities (likely due to all that extra labour coming in)
The benefit is that more people can afford to buy houses? Really surprising to see a country taking care of their people, and not just the wealthy ones!
All the hypotheses claiming that "the market pressure will improve things for all" have been proven false at this point. We have decades of data, and this is only widening the inequality gap.
> The benefit is that more people can afford to buy houses?
Can they? I mean, what is your plan to lower current housing prices? Cut off demand from foreigners with purchasing power and instead replace it with demand from people who cannot afford a home? They are not even the same housing market, are they?
I don't see why this is better than people renting and investing their savings elsewhere, which is how it works with apartments anyway. So you own a house, it makes basically no return, now what?
where exactly does a house make no return, especially in say last decade/15 years? I bought three houses in the last 20 years, one doubled, one up 70% and one 40% (still occupying it)
Exactly, it's like complaining that gold is unfairly expensive. Those lucky Boomers got to purchase it at $40/oz in 1970 ($350/oz in 2025 money), now it's $2600/oz. I should be allowed to buy gold for $350/oz so I can profit like they did.
give me some places where it is not and we’ll look at zillow or whatever public data there is for a given region. unless we are talking like rural-no-is-around-for-miles perhaps but otherwise properties over the last 10-15 years have appreciated
Besides, if foreigners are investing solely to speculate - if they did fix the supply constraints, the opportunity for speculation would greatly decrease. It's only an attractive investment because the supply is so finite.