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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

Wish they did this in Los Angeles.

LA housing is, by Australian and even Auckland New Zealand standards, super cheap.

My guess is something sensible like this would have zero chance of happening in the USA. It would be killed by the Real Estate lobby before a single pen hit paper.

I really doubt it's foreign buyers driving up housing prices anywhere in the US… Let alone in New Zealand.

Then you are unaware of actual statistics in Los Angeles. Chinese money alone accounts for 10s of billions of dollars.

There are multiple factors driving up housing prices in New Zealand (and Australia as well), and foreign buyers are a significant contributer (just not the sole cause).

Keep in mind that there are single cities in China where the population matches the entirety of Australia, and is five times that of New Zealand. There's a lot of cash floating around our budding new superpower, so...

it'd likely be found unconstitutional on the basis of discrimination against someone due to nationality.

There is no constitutional law against discrimination based on nationality.

What about the Fair Housing Act?

"The prohibitions specifically cover discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability and the presence of children."

National origin and nationality are different things.

National origin is not the same as nationality. There are countless rights that citizens have that non-citizens do not.

Why? You have to have some legal residency to get a driver's license. Why not to buy a house?

Not if it was equally applied to all nationalities.

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