It has nothing to do with racism. If this were a flood of German or British money distorting the market it would be the same.
It sounds like property taxes are unsustainably low the more I hear arguments against the Chinese money.
Disclaimer: I'm not of Chinese descent and I'm definitely poor so none of this benefits me. I'm just trying to understand what people are saying because it all sounds like a bunch of dog whistling where people say something but mean something else. I just want us to be open and honest with our bigotry if it is bigotry or greed if it is greed.
Please don't buy into this nonsense. Your sibling comment brought in some actual numbers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18269257
BC has relatively low property taxes for the area. But you can't raise them now or all the current homeowners would revolt as their taxes goes to unsustainable levels. Nearby seattle's king county has a tax rate of %1, texas has rates around %2, while saanich is %0.4. The UK doesn't even really have property taxes, just council taxes which charge flat rates for things like garbage collection AFAIK. http://www.saanich.ca/assets/Community/Documents/Property~Ta...
The property taxes are too low to be sustainable. Progress always causes some problem for some people but we must go forward with it. Raise property taxes for everyone.
> Also the supply of houses is lower, making apartments even more dear. Next many of the houses aren't lived in, so local area businesses don't have enough customers and close (grocery, clothing, restaurants).
What kind of hot garbage is this? Isn't the whole point of a market economy that we don't have to centrally manage grocery stores (and indeed that it asserts we cannot do this efficiently in the long run)?
Of course, planning has its place. Higher taxes in itself does not solve any problem. We still need to plan city expansion and not just build new suburbs because "ZOMG the Chinese will pay for it". That's not what I am saying but I am saying that existing home owners have been benefiting in a manner that I consider unsustainable and we should thank the Chinese elite for exposing our double standards.
We live in a democracy and as such we have an obligation to think beyond our immediate short term benefit when we vote. Vote for sustainable tax structures. I am not saying property taxes should be 50% of appraisal value. In fact, I think we should aggressively cut salaries and wages in the public sector (especially at the top). But lets not delude ourselves by pretending we can think "smart". The extra money raised from increased property taxes (which should damper home prices somewhat already) must be spent in a very disciplined and planned way to increase capacity (which will further decrease home prices). I think we can do it but we can only do it if we want to do it. There will be a little pain but there's simply no way around it I can think of that leaves our moral fiber not too frayed.
I'm not pushing an agenda for the government to intervene, I'm just reporting on the basic economics - demand went up, supply went down (more people moving there, and also houses bought but not on the market) led to higher prices.
Also, on my second point about neighborhoods losing their commercial infrastructure because of empty houses, isn't that obvious too? I honestly feel like you were replying to another post and accidentally used mine.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/are-vancouve...
This means the locals eventually leave, businesses close and the community suffers.
A huge issue in Vancouver is the lack of rental units. When a significant amount of property is owned - but not lived in this creates significant community debt.
Same thing happened to my community - we became a vacation community for a neighboring province, which in turn has left homes empty on my street for 9 months of the year.
Local business cannot survive when a large bulk of the residents only live and buy 3 months out of the year.
I saw my home price triple - sounds great, but so did all the homes that I would want to purchase (after selling mine for a huge profit) - so to me, zero benefit.
My friends who did have them means to buy 10 years ago...now they will never be able to purchase.
Nor can they find a home to rent as there is a huge rental void.
http://www.saanich.ca/assets/Community/Documents/Property~Ta...
You also cannot just say 'recently foreign buyers pay a higher tax continuously' due to various obvious discrimination and unfairness issues as these people convert into citizens. So you get stuff like the unoccupied residence tax (which should triple IMO to make it exceed texas's property tax rates) and the foreign purchase tax.
I think fears of racism is what partly delayed a lot action that has happened recently. This has been an issue 10-15 years in the making at the least.
My goal would be to eventually raise property taxes to make them negative investments unless rented out on an active basis, and divert those new taxes into something like the singaporean HBD flats.
Instead looking at the long term the 21st century is Asian not American. Canada is handed an opportunity.
So it didn't seem to imply major issues of racism.
It seems to me its more of a logical stance. People can buy real estate and move to Vancouver, but it should be done in a way where the foreigner's arrival creates opportunities and a better life for the locals. All relationship has to be win/win.
Laundering money, leaving homes empty, not investing in the economy appart from real estate, these don't sound very beneficial. It seems its not even a big tax benefit due to loopholes.
Also, the measures put in place target all foreigner equally, Germans and British included.
You'll have to do more than argue the racist stance here, at least to convince me. Are there still racists in Vancouver? Yes (thoug in my own experience, a lot less then in most other western cities). Are they relevant to the topic at hand, I believe not at all.
I already proposed a very simple solution: raise real estate taxes to sustainable levels. Use the money to cover infrastructure costs. I don't see why it is so difficult.
Real estate taxes are low as a percentage but high in terms of dollars, for those residents who live and work in the city. Incomes have not risen accordingly. For the independently wealthy, sure another few percent on a recent purchase is no problem. But for families that are already struggling to pay the huge tax (in dollar terms, not percentage, due to the rising value of their home) it would force them to sell and leave the city.
It also would get passed on to renters.
This is different than the bay area issue, where property taxes are locked down and the city is generating massive wealth due to the tech industry, floating real estate prices. Vancouver is not generating the wealth to support that kind of tax base that it needs.
Higher taxes would force owners to either sell or rent which increases housing supply, right? Also I want to use the tax money to further increase housing supply.
If a resident is forced to sell or rent, well, they'd be either selling to a wealthier, possibly absentee owner who can afford the massive price and higher taxes, or they'd be renting a basement suite (since they're residents). Most basement suites legal to rent are already on the market, I think.
There's a good chance that this would make the problem worse, by creating vacancies that nobody can afford to occupy. If it manages to crash the market, perhaps those people would be able to move back eventually or see their taxes drop in dollar terms, but it's not clearly a good thing.
Effectively your solution is what they're doing. Foreign home purchases is now taxed at a higher rate, and empty homes also get taxed.
Personally, I don't think that's the greatest solution, unless the taxes are turned back into income for locals, or major tax cuts for them, to a point where it balances out the artificial cost of living increase due to the foreign real estate market.
That's not that I want. I want higher taxes on everyone, not just an absentee owners.
The tax money should be used to increase supply of housing and help suppress home prices.