Why can't we do this? [Houses and stuff]

Terry

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/04/08/canada-bans-foreign-home-buyers-two-years-cool-housing-market/9516448002/

[QUOTE]OTTAWA, Ontario – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government announced Thursday it will ban foreign investors from buying homes in Canada for two years in a bid to cool off a hot housing market. 

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland took a number of measures to tamp down speculation and demand amid record home prices in announcing the federal budget for the year. 

The government announced a two-year ban on foreign home buying as well as higher taxes for people who sell their home within a year, though both measures include multiple exceptions including for permanent residents and foreign students. 

The budget also includes billions for new housing and measures to help Canadians trying to get into the market, including a new savings account and changes to the first-time home buyers tax credit.[/QUOTE]

Half of the problem here is foreign investors buying property, and charging people a fortune for rent. Why can't our government stop this from happening?

This doesn't directly affect me, but I'm well aware that tens of thousands of young people in this country can't afford to buy their own home, and a large part of the problem is because of foreign (mostly U.S.) investors.

This is basically the same as when we were under British rule.

Terry

It's been a while since I posted here, so I've no idea why the basic HTML isn't working.

Fúck it.

Ubbquittious

The banks were in **** in 2008 and the government pulled all the stops out to drive up property prices (restrictive planning laws, letting vultures & ReiT's in). Now they have overshot massively and have no idea how to bring things to a manageable level without causing another crash.

A shortage of building materials and labour has hit them just when they were maybe pondering to start trying to do something about the problem they created

riclad

We are in the eu ,its probably against the law to ban companys or investors from buying property in ireland, building materials have gone up about 35 per cent in the last year. nama sold off property cheap in 2008.

BattleCorp

As was already mentioned, anybody from the EU is entitled to buy goods and services in any other EU country. Goods includes houses.

Banning foreigners from buying up property wouldn't make much difference. The foreign REITs etc would just open up a company here and hey presto, they now Irish.

No easy solution other than getting the Government back building social housing instead of bidding against private investors for any housing that becomes available.

riclad

theres probably 10 reasons, at least, supply side problems, inflation, workers leaving ireland ,the pandemic,high price of land, height building restrictions,etc why this problem is very difficult to tackle .

Terry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118949052#Comment_118949052

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118949429#Comment_118949429

I'm fine with EU citizens buying property here. No problem with citizens of any country, to be honest.

My problem is with foreign (and Irish, too) investors buying up houses, and selling them well above value, or using them as rental properties, which prevents the renters from actually buying their own homes.

CPTM

We need a minister of housing who has courage, conviction, intelligence and a slightly radical way of thinking. Thinking outside the box. I just don't think we've found that person yet. I'm not sure there will ever be a FF/FG/Green minister who can step outside of their conservative ways enough to really make a dent.

We've seen what our government can do during global crises. If they really wanted to fix this issue, they would go to war on it. And they simply haven't.