> Poof

This has pretty much already been done in Vancouver, which has layers of Foreign Buyer Taxes, Speculation Taxes, Empty Home Taxes and strict Airbnb regulation.

It absolutely did not make the problem go 'poof.'

All these things were well worth doing and helped in various ways, but it remains that the core underlying problem is that there's not enough homes for everyone and scarcity ensures high rents and high prices. The dull solution is that a hell of a lot of homes need to be built.

It has not been done in earnest in Vancouver. There's a 15 point 'one time' fee but it likely should be more, and/or an ongoing assessment i.e. higher annual taxes. Moreover, Canada gives away citizenship like candy and families have their kids live there.

AirBnB is still running strong as well, which should be much more heavily taxed.

The government still keeps track of the amount of foreign buyers. It has plunged. It's likely that if it was a still a problem people would be doing something more but it's marginal at this point.

The biggest impacts have already happened. We had developers building hyper luxury condos explicitly marketed to an asian audience and overnight with the foreign buyer tax everyone stopped making those and the same developers have pivoted to building purpose built rental for locals.

The taxes worked. There's still a housing crisis.

There's been nothing even remotely close to a ban, and it's highly uncertain the degree to which the new rules are even enforced. As with most things, Canadians are expected to Trust The Experts....and trust them they do!

You don't need to trust the "experts" you can look at the data which is publicly available.

> In 2020, the share of foreigners in the fair market value of homes was almost zero.

> It was 0.56 percent to be exact, based on figures compiled by Brendon Ogmundson, chief economist with the B.C. Real Estate Association.

> Ogmundson used official B.C. government data on property transfer taxes.

https://www.straight.com/news/no-scapegoats-this-time-bc-eco...

Previously the government didn't track details around who was buying homes, and this is something that changed along with the foreign buyer tax.

> In 2020, the share of foreigners in the fair market value of homes was almost zero.

a) What is the precise meaning of "foreigners" in this context? How is it measured? When the identity is hidden behind a numbered company, does our expert source disclose that?

b) If someone who has gained citizenship then accepts a wire transfer of $10M+ (from someone who is not a citizen) and then proceeds to buy 10 houses (overbidding for each), is that "foreign" involvement?

c) By what methodology were these numbers compiled, from which data sources, and can people examine these processes with no restrictions?

> It was 0.56 percent to be exact, based on figures compiled by Brendon Ogmundson, chief economist with the B.C. Real Estate Association.

"Was" (to be within reality) "exact" and "based on..." is an interesting claim from an epistemological perspective. Is Mr. Ogmundson, chief economist with the B.C. Real Estate Association, guaranteed to be a trustworthy source of information?

> Ogmundson used official B.C. government data on property transfer taxes.

Is there some reason one should believe that this data, or the government that administers it, is trustworthy? (There is a fairly substantial amount of historic stories to believe that they are not.)

> Previously the government didn't track details around who was buying homes, and this is something that changed along with the foreign buyer tax.

There is what is claimed has changed, and what has actually changed. Often, the difference is impossible to resolve - it is also often difficult to realize that a difference between the two is even possible.

When you buy a property your citizenship is now recorded. Previously it wasn't. We're now seeing the amount of people without Canadian citizenship has plunged. Before the tax was introduced in some areas of Metro Vancouver the amount of foreign buyers was relatively low, but in some areas the amount of foreigners was in the high teens, approaching 20%.

As the amount of foreign buyers is now explicitly recorded in all real estate purchases, presumably Mr. Ogmundson looked up that data. He wouldn't have had to do anything creative or difficult to come up with this data.

> Is there some reason one should believe that this data, or the government that administers it, is trustworthy?

If you're at the point where you're not trusting data the government collects I dunno man. Keep your tin foil hat on tight bud.

It's trivial to incorporate a business to buy property, I wonder how easy that circumvention is.

Canada is oddly one of the places in the world wherein it's difficult to discover who owns what.

British Columbia is introducing a "beneficial ownership registry" as part of the foreign buyer tax stuff that would identify who actually owns what regardless of the numbered company that techncially owns it. Canada is bringing in one too.

"B.C.’s beneficial ownership registry being used in tax cases, visa applications"

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/arti...

BC is certainly the first place in Canada to do this and they haven't even finished the registry yet. Seems like it's quite tricky to sort out.

"B.C.’s land registry aimed at finding hidden owners bogged down by concerns over clarity, confidentiality" https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/arti...

Even though the thing isn't fully up and running yet, the government has been so clear years ago that they will do this that it probably would have had a chilling effect on future purchases.

1. "banning foreign ownership" would result in Portugalexit at best, perhaps a Zairization of Portugal, or even worse - no thanks.

What's wrong with large industrial projects?

It's exactly what we need at this moment - in fact, both Portugal and EU-scale.

This would cost a small fraction of the Quantitative Easing program from the European Central Bank.

(and these Massive Real Estate buildouts must include the lessons in Urbanism learned from past such projects)

2. (y)

3. State sector raises salaries, private sector is forced to follow. Just raising minimum wage is positive, but not enough. This tends to compress people to the bottom salary tier and promote even more brain drain.

Large industrial projects are gigantic efforts that involve billions of dollars and years/decades to take effect, massive capital requirements. And risk.

"State sector raises salaries, private sector is forced to follow." ... my god man, no, that's not how it works.

More like: "Already inefficient state bureaucracies raise salaries, attracting workers from private sector who cannot afford to pay higher wages, requiring massive budgetary increase from government i.e. 'more taxes' just as economy goes into tailspin due to private sector layoffs.

Probably the EU needs to re-think the fact that it's designed to send all young workers to Germany or at least out of Portugual/Spain/S. Italy and Greece and leave them as octegenarian tourist centres with illegal Turkish workers doing the actual work.

Either 1) the EU starts massive transfer payments or 2) get rid of the Euro and have some limits on mobility, or it will just limp along. #1 might require political and fiscal integration which would probably just exasperate the problem.

In the short term, they should probably raise taxes on foreign home ownership.

Large industrial projects brought most of the civilization advances we enjoy today: What were then Concorde, the US Interstate Highway System, LHC, Hoover Dam and the Apollo Program?

But yes, Europe needs a genuine Hamiltonian Moment (share the debt burden) and also a genuine New Deal, instead of the current beggar-thy-neighbor EU order where Germany & friends benefit all.

(1). why not just make it painful to be a foreigner there. Raise taxes on rent/property if you're foreign by 3-4x (or whatever makes sense after an analysis of building new housing from foreigner tax dollars). If you don't want to scare off the ones already there then make it not retroactive. People like to make these situations tougher than they need to be. Mostly it's impossible because politicians are paid off by the 1% (foreign and domestic). The Portuguese have a right to enjoy their country without foreigners coming in and buying it off and pushing them to the edge of poverty. Globalism has got us in a tenuous situation in the West depending completely on the likes of China for our style of living. I can understand the Portuguese being angry with the situation.

> why not just make it painful to be a foreigner there

In a country with a TFR of ~1.4 and a median age of ~47. What could possibly go wrong? It's not like Portugal is seeing a declining population or anything. Oh, wait.

> 1. "banning foreign ownership" would result in Portugalexit at best, perhaps a Zairization of Portugal, or even worse - no thanks.

What? This makes no sense. You basically leave out a large chunk of the induced demand. There you have your prices lowering.