Do you have a source on this? From what I've seen, Vancouver real estate (and Toronto) is still ludicrous (given Canadian wages).
I'd also like to see a vacancy tax or perhaps an even more directed law prohibiting foreign ownership of a certain level. Then again, I'd also like to see Prop 13 not apply to commercial property, not be passed on in inheritance, and not apply to non-primary residences, but these ideas all seem to be nonsensical in CA legislators and citizens' minds.
Since assholes flagged parent comment I'll add my comment here.
Foreign investment, is really not just foreigner in the traditional since. It also includes anyone from outside the city looking for a place to park their share of the fire house of liquidity the central banks are handing out to the ubber wealthy.
Sure you can stop foreign investors like a nouveau riche Chinese national that owns a successful business in China. But that stuff doesn't even slow down old money.
demand for investing in the limited supply of apartments based on their profitability is not the same thing as demand for the actual product of housing, which is what supply and demand in the housing market is supposed to be about - you're basically proving the point that incentives here are perverse
There is lots of supply of money relative to supply of comparable investment opportunities (in societies with stable governments).
There is lots of demand for housing relative to supply of housing.
There is lack of supply of cities with equivalent income opportunities and amenities of SF relative to demand for that type of city.
All various ways of discussing the supply and demand curves that cause prices. And multiple solutions to address each one, assuming the goal is to make prices go lower. Such as increasing income/wealth tax, vacancy tax, increasing property taxes, increasing supply of housing, increasing cities like SF with labor laws similar to CA, etc.
No? If you build new housing units it doesn’t matter if outsiders buy them. There will be more units to satisfy demand, both foreign and local.
And buying a unit to rent it does not change the housing supply. It is new people moving to a city that fills up supply. Is that what you meant by profitability: buying an apartment to rent? Every city has landlords.
On a semi related note, I've seen a lot more 'stop' and 'stop it' on the internet lately. Arguably the various forms of saying the same thing come and go in terms of what is commonly used, but I've been surprised to see such empty words suddenly so common.
Personally I would be a bit embarrassed to just tell people to 'stop it' as to me it seems sort of childish, but apparently not everyone.
Because it gets old listening to the same tired uninformed troupes from some random person on the internet that is just regurgitating misinformation.
For people that actually live in San Francisco this is a real issue that affects our daily lives. Having some random person spreading more incorrect info is insulting and actually potentially harmful to the people that actually live here and have to pay those rents like I do.
I pointed out that you were wrong about Vancouver. You had no rebuttal. Living in San Francisco doesn’t make someone an expert on the Vancouver housing market.
> Because it gets old listening to the same tired uninformed troupes[sic] from some random person on the internet that is just regurgitating misinformation.
Not to be harsh, but your frustrations are yours alone. Nobody else is terribly motivated by your pet peeves, and when you snap at people with "stop it" their response is going to be less "they must be tired of something" and more "what an unreasonable <bleep>".
> For people that actually live in San Francisco this is a real issue that affects our daily lives.
Living in a city does not give you exclusive right to discuss its issues, nor does it give you a monopoly on information about that city.
And by your own theory, you shouldn't be talking about Vancouver, since apparently you do not live there.
> Having some random person spreading more incorrect info is insulting
"You're wrong and shut up" (paraphrased) doesn't stop people from repeating what you perceive to be misinformation. All it does is convince them that you're an unreasonable person to interact with. If you want to actually stop the "misinformation", provide arguments. Because I guarantee you that nobody here will respect your preposterous order to "stop it".
> and actually potentially harmful to the people that actually live here and have to pay those rents like I do.
I know that there's an increasing trend towards viewing speech as violence, but this is ridiculous. My opinion on rents in SF is not harming you, least of all because I have literally no power to affect policy in a city over 500 miles away from me.
And even if you still persist in believing that we're somehow hurting you by talking about your city, then a dismissive attempt to shut down the conversation is doing you no favors, because you haven't convinced anyone here that they're wrong. They'll just keep repeating what they believe after they've finished downvoting your complaints into oblivion.
I suggest informing people rather than resorting to 'stop it'.
I don't have an opinion on prices in any of these places, but when reading your posts I don't think your posts in this thread don't provide any information.
Yes cash, but not necessarily foreign. I recently went through the process of placing bids on 2 houses in SF and both had cash offers higher and both cash offers came from local residents already living in SF.
That does not mean the funds did not come from overseas. It is common that it will be passed through a local resident, by way of LLC, for the actual purchase.
SF has (had?) the highest percentage of millionaires/billionaires in the US. It is (was) arguably the richest city in the US or possibly the world. Many of the thousands of fresh millionaires that it mints yearly come from very large windfalls... which are immediately used to purchase houses in cash. At the same time, SF is building literally no new detached single family houses.
In these cases, the funds came from tech money. I made sure to check at the time so I could better understand the market. One buyer was friends with the seller, but they didn't know until receiving his formal offer. SF is a small city, especially in tech circles.
You are just restating the issue but shifting the blame. The is still the lack of supply to meet demand, and blaming all that demand on foreign investment doesn't fundamentally change the issue.
