>Could you please explain why the foreign investment is a problem? Every time I've heard this discussed, it's mostly been people saying "The CHINESE are buying up houses" with a racist glint in their eyes.

It's pretty much any major world city oligarchs have decided to throw their ill gotten gains at. In London it's Russians and Arabs with oil wealth. In Vancouver and SF it's Chinese.

These oligarch investments physically occupy a massive amount of premium space, pushing the poorer residents further and further out of the city.

In a lot of cases these people are pretty much criminals. It's rare to earn a lot of money in Russia, China or the Middle East honestly. Hence the desire for a foreign bolthole and an investment the host country can't touch.

But sure. Racist glint or whatever.

In London they currently have 230 buildings 20 stories or more being developed, or planned for development. It looks like the investment capital is doing wonders there.

It's not because the buyers are Chinese it's mostly due to the volume of purchases affecting the market so directly. They could be "Newfies" if you had as many driving up prices so dramatically, you'd get an outcry. It happens in the US in Portland you'll occasionally see signs about No Californians.

It doesn't help that many of those are not "regular" Chinese but people with money and connected, the Chinese .1%ers, so to speak, who are buying properties as a pied de terre in the event things go bad in the homeland and they need to hightail it as well as a place to park their connected money.

They aren't buying houses becuase they might need to live in them. They could rent anywhere easily. They are buying them as investments.

The idea of ownership is more important in Chinese culture so renting is not as attractive, plus ownership affords them a place to park their money away from central govt control.

In many cases the younger generation changes citizenship. The whole family could leverage that in a pinch.

Well given that I'm South Asian, I don't think their race is an issue to me personally, and people in Vancouver who've brought this problem up are the most racially progressive bunch there is (including a huge native Chinese population that has been there for decades). Chinese money is flooding in because of issues in the Chinese investment market and they are increasing their investment in the SF market too now.

The by-product is that the demand side is doubled up! Protectionism doesn't work, so what do we do? I'm firmly in the 'Build More' category but this one problem, I'm not sure how to solve.

> Well given that I'm South Asian, I don't think their race is an issue to me personally

First I've heard of some sort of racial friendship between Chinese and Indians. I can assure you it's not reciprocated by the Chinese.

> Could you please explain why the foreign investment is a problem?

I'm not sure, but I get the impression that the concern is partly about non-resident populations. Non-residents buying homes as investments or as a hedge against corruption driving them out of their home countries uncaps demand. More demand might end up causing wealth transfer from the renter class to the owner class.

The Chinese people who are buying up houses aren't buying them to live in, they're buying them just to speculate. The owners stay in China. It would be just as bad if they were from another country, it's just that they happen to be Chinese.

Housing should be utilized. I could also say everytime this comes up someone is quick to start saying racist. I don't care the origin, I just care that this product could actually be used by locals.

We could test your idea if there were any French or Irish investors. Or even American investors.

There are, but they're harder to count.

In most studies the Chinese investors are counted by their foreign names. There is no public data on nationality of real estate owners.

Because local governments do everything they can to avoid collecting specific data in vancouver.

There was a time when people would've been just as worried.