Canada Bans Foreigners from Buying Homes in a Bid to Make Properties More Affordable. Should Australia Follow Suit?

Since January 1, Canada has banned purchase of residential property by non-Canadians for two years.

Like many countries during the pandemic, Canada saw huge price increases for both sales and rentals as borrowing rates plunged to record lows, taking inventory with them.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “The desirability of Canadian homes is attracting profiteers, wealthy corporations, and foreign investors. Homes are for people, not investors.”

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/canada-bans-forei…

What do you think?

Would you like a similar scheme in Australia?

Poll Options

  • 977
    Yes, house prices must come down making it more affordable to everyone
  • 52
    No, I don’t think this would not work in Australia
  • 63
    No, I don’t want this scheme because I want my properties prices to go up

Comments

    • -3

      Yes, along with removing negative gearing and the CGT discount, and banning holiday homes.

      Negative gearing, yes agreed, but why holiday homes? I find it hard to believe that a holiday house in some beach town 300km from a capital city will have any impact on house prices in the capital cities which are driving most of the price inflation.

      • +2

        I'm located only 50km from the city where I work, and nearly 1/4 homes here are sadly holiday homes. I need to live here (due to family reasons), alongside other primary residents who are here for work (but are increasingly being pushed out due to the wealthy buying up homes here that they don't need, so they can visit their otherwise empty house 2 weeks in the year).

        • I'm guessing Mornington Peninsula since you're from Melbourne?

          You're right on this - I didn't think that people would be buying holiday houses so close to the CBD.

          Not sure how you would "ban" holiday houses though - what exactly is a "holiday house" anyway? Probably just some vacancy tax on unoccupied non-primary residences, which is similar to your last point anyway. Guess we agree!

  • +2

    Aren't foreigns restricted only to new buildings and vacant land in Australia? Each case is also reviewed by FIRB. I had a colleague who wanted to buy a house while being on a temporary visa, and it is PITA.

  • +2

    It might help… a little bit. I suspect the much bigger issue is the upper-middle class buying up everything they can afford to lease out though. The problem with real estate is it's straight forward enough that any idiot can strike it rich if they're able to stump up the minimum amount of cash. Profitable for thee, but socially and economically destructive in the medium and long term.

    • +1

      I suspect the much bigger issue is the upper-middle class buying up everything they can afford to lease out though.

      Is that really the case though? From my research, I can only find that around a maximum of ~8% of the population actually own at least one investment property.

      That being said though, it's not hard to understand why property continues to be an attractive asset class, with easy access to leverage, government policies that actively protect residential property prices (in a way that they do not protect other asset classes), and how easy it is to purchase a property, then grow out of it and buy a new one whilst retaining the old one as an investment.

  • +2

    The Ontario teachers pension plan (Canada), is one the biggest investors in Australian assets and one of the biggest single owner foreign owner of Australian residential property.

    https://citywire.com/au/news/canadian-pension-funds-at-home-…
    https://realassets.ipe.com/news/cadillac-fairview-and-hines-…

    https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/tony-abbott-courts-o…

    • Wow 😯

    • +1

      Where is the option to just ban canucks from buying aussie property?

  • +4

    Aww.. so cute… people think the gov actually gives two flying farts about gen pop problems.

  • -3

    Blatant racism in this age of social justice warriors, woke, cancel culture crew?

    Western world seems confused.

    • +1

      Where is the racism? You can be of any race and be an Australian Citizen or permanent resident.

  • +1

    There already are laws regarding foreign ownership, its just not enforced

    There is also a lot of ignorance in this thread, most property bought by foreigners are NOT established homes

    My own observation when house hunting years back was all the old farts were buying property as interests rates were too low to survive.

    Traditionally Pensioners/self retirees rely on that 4/5% savings interest rate to live off. They got destroyed and moved to housing

    Im curious to see what the housing market will be like in the next 2-3 years

  • Don't mind either way. I buy when it goes up, but if it goes down.

  • +1

    A case of too little, too late.

  • +3

    Pauline Hanson

  • -1

    The only way to make properties affordable is by chargi g higher capital gain tax for 2nd 3rd 4th properties to discourage getting rich using properties. People will then buy their own property and one more for investment /retirement.

  • Interesting views from others. Ive conceptualised the reason for post COVID house growth rates is because a demand and supply from existing home owners.

    TLDR: The biggest impact on home growth rates have been pre COVID home owners trading each other. If there is something that can be done about general price regulating of homes, I can’t see increasing interest rates carving anyone out of the market except for new entrants/equity light.

    Example: Home owner 1 and home owner 2 bought pre COVID.

    Home owner 1 now realises they can’t travel, so their travel savings are rolled into domestic investments, like buying a car (also an increased price market) and upgrading their home.

    Home owner 2 want to sell. Home owner 1 is competing with a new couple entering the market. They both believe the price is worth $3m. Home owner 1 needs to sell their house to buy home 2, so they pay $500k over market (using their travel savings/inflated proceeds from selling their own home - see below).

    Market prices are now adjusted after home owner 2 received $500k over market. Home owner 1 now gets substantially more than what the property is worth. The $500k premium paid to buy house 2 is now balanced out through inflated proceeds on their own home sale.

    The new entrants/equity light buy nothing, so they likely continue to rent. Rent prices are then indirectly pushed up by anyone who can’t buy a house.

  • Don't stop there. Tax all investment properties.

    If you have money to invest, you can invest in shares, a business, crypto, currency, commodities, etc.

    Housing is a necessity. The property 'market' shouldn't exist primarily as a wealth generator for a small portion of the population.

  • +1

    There are so many ways to make housing more affordable. This is only one way and not the only way. It's so obvious that it won't happen in Australia. The government won't let it happen no matter how much they say they are doing something about it. It's just pretending.

  • +1

    Frankly, smart money will always prevail. I think its more important to get yourself out of whatever you think is sh*t, and move on.
    How much can the government / policies help you? Everyone's just trying to get ahead in life.

  • Guess who bought our properties during the boarder closure? Australians?

    The only thing this will do is change more of the ownership to Australian, but it won’t be with the Australians most want. Ie more of the buyers will be the rich Australians.

    • Guess who will be for losing on their property due to the governments inability to make infrastructure more varied rather centralised.

      • We'll be fine. Infrastructure hasn't changed significantly cross city and property prices still rise.

  • Curious to know the figures/percentage of foreign property investors compared to local. In the past few years at least post-covid it seems more like cashed up mum and dads buying up everything. Maybe work on negative gearing laws before blaming foreign investors? But that's not gonna happen with all these pollies owning 5-6 investment properties.

  • Even if we do this, won't companies spring up that will "own" the house on behalf of you?. Pretty sure that's what thailand do.

  • Any housing affordability scheme that doesn't reduce house prices is not a housing affordability scheme.

  • hmmm, i'm sort of on the fence on this, i think there is a fair middle ground. If we can limit it so that only the foreigners who are buying to live here (and they can prove that they are using the property for that purpose), potentially even people that are trying to get citizenship here etc, then i think that's a decent middle ground.

    I know many times people think about foreign buyers as the wealthy buyer from another country that just buys the property with their pocket change then does nothing with it. But we can't forget about the people that are trying to move to australia, who are willing to work and contribute to the australian economy, and want to setup their new life here.

    I just think back to how my family got here. My grandparents escaped to here right after the war, they didn't have a citizenship or anything back then, but they came here, worked very lowend laboursome jobs, and ended up buying their place (grant it you probably can't do that nowadays as a result of wages/property prices), but i don't think they were citizen when they bought here. But they wanted to move their whole life here, and accordingly become a contributing member of our australian society, working, paying taxes, etc.

    • +1

      There’s a difference between fleeing a war torn country (aka hard mode) and leaving a country because you can’t be arsed to build it up, so want to go somewhere where things are already “nice” (aka ez mode).

      We should not be importing people who have a propensity for ez mode.

      • +1

        There are many different reasons to want to move to another country, that are not aligned with the two modes you talk of.

        • +1

          There are many different reasons to want to move to another country

          Wanting to move to another country falls into immigration.

          Ultimately you are either forced to move because your home becomes uninhabitable, or you choose to move.

          • @Ghost47: Again, it isn't that cut-and-dried.
            I'm still unclear why you don't support immigration (unless from a war torn country). This country has benefited from all types of immigrants, regardless of what their reasons were.

            • -1

              @GG57:

              Again, it isn't that cut-and-dried.

              Feel free to list out 5 scenarios, it will be quite simple to assign them to either category.

              I'm still unclear why you don't support immigration (unless from a war torn country).

              I'm not sure why you want to keep importing hundreds of thousands of immigrants. See what I did there?

              I never explicitly stated that "I don't support immigration", I just don't support the rampant immigration the current and previous LNP governments have allowed for, especially considering we have a very low number of rentals.

              I would not call refugees "immigrants". Refugees don't really have a choice (e.g. fleeing a war torn country, sex trafficking), immigrants choose to move (i.e. can't be arsed working in their own country to build it up so leaves it in the poor state it's in and goes to a more developed country instead).

              I don't disagree this country hasn't benefitted from immigration, it definitely has, but it doesn't mean we will continue to benefit into perpetuity just because it worked in the past.

      • +1

        as GG57 said, there's many reasons to move countries, and it's not all black and white.

  • Maybe do the same for agricultural land too.

    • What about ports?

  • What are we defining "foreigners" as exactly? We have a lot of highly skilled working immigrants who need a place to live, does that mean they are not allowed to buy? As the article says (granted this guy is in real estate so he's biased) - “Most foreigners buying real estate are not speculators. They’re immigrants buying homes to live in.”

    And I betcha that high wealth foreigners who do not live in Australia will still find a way to do it. Setup a shell company in Australia or something like that. I'm no financial advisor but it doesn't seem incredibly complicated to think of ways around it.

    • Looking at the Foreign Investment Review Board information; The total number of residential real estate purchase transactions was 9,295 with a value of 7.5 billion dollars. And the vast number of those purchases were new dwellings, so the generic supply>demand argument doesn't stack up.

      That's not a big number compared to; CoreLogic estimates there were almost 598,000 house and unit sales across Australia over the year ending August 2021

    • They should buy bases of marriage, citizenship or by birth of right.

      Holding a job and living in Australia for 4 years entitles you from no tax levies.

      Simply buying while not in Australia should apply as it does to dual citizenship politics.

    • What are we defining "foreigners" as exactly? We have a lot of highly skilled working immigrants who need a place to live, does that mean they are not allowed to buy?

      Almost all "highly skilled working immigrants" are Australian citizens or permanent residents.

  • Did you see how quickly the Queensland government caved when trying to impose land tax on interstate investors? Not a chance of foreign ownership rules being changed when the landed class holds so much sway.

    • +1

      That was a double tax - it shouldn’t have been considered… or get federal government to administer land tax and distribute ala gst.

  • +1

    Blatant, shameful racism.

    • its obvious since they didn't ban "profiteers, wealthy corporations"

  • You must be a citizen or permanent resident to buy a house in Australia anyways, so what would change? Correct me if I am wrong.

    • +1

      Yes, but by using the power of the mind, one can work ways around the laws in order to own property.

      I see foreigners doing it other countries all the time. They even have YT videos on how they pulled it off, legally.

      • by using the power of the mind

        Damn, I didn't know it was that simple!

      • +1

        So then this whole discussion is pointless. If Australia pass similar laws to Canada then the powers of the mind can surely find ways around that new law as well

  • +1

    Ideally we want something to stabilise property prices not lower them. This means that wages grow while property prices stay the same so over time they become more affordable.

    Lowering prices sounds good until you have bought one. The last thing you want is to save up, finally get a mortgage, then have prices lower so you are over leveraged. At this point some people might choose just to go bankrupt to get out of excessive debt which isn't good for anyone.

    I would prefer it if they set a date to remove negative gearing and the 50% capital gains discount with grandfathering for existing properties until they are sold. Same as how assets owned before 1985 are exempt from capital gains tax.

  • +2

    my readings of Canada was that house prices were pushed up stratospherically by the incursion of dodgy money from China seeking a safe haven - accompanied by Lamborghini driving young people flaunting their wealth in the face of hard-working Canadians who could now no longer afford to buy a house there.

    kinda like - you piss me off, ima do something about that

  • -1

    No because I want to continue creating wealth, retire early, set my kids up etc. I grew up poor and I played by the rules, stop changing the rules.

    • +2

      I grew up poor and I played by the rules, stop changing the rules.

      What about all of the times the rules were changed to benefit you? Were you against those changes too?

      • -1

        No because it's pretty balanced now.

        • +1

          No because it's pretty balanced now.

          So basically you don't have any principled belief against "changing the rules", you are just unhappy that you've lost out?

          FWIW, I don't know why real estate investors should be protected with government policies. If you invest in stocks, government policies can cause wild double-digit percentage swings.

  • Why the double negative with poll option 2?

    They already do this in other countries, and have done so since forever, yet it hasn't stopped the massive growth in property values.

    I don't really understand why everyone thinks this is part of the solution.

    What you're really asking for: you don't think supply and demand is fair, and you want the rich (or those with the means to buy property) to stop getting richer.

    Everybody is trying to give themselves economic prosperity, if property is one of the ways to do that… what do you expect?

  • It would probably work for short term but it will kill off the building industry as we seen last year.

  • -1

    Foreign investment would be a a reason for higher housing price but surely not among the top ones.

    What's the point of not tackling top ones but focusing on the small fishes?

    Also there are plenty of places with cheap house prices even in Melbourne and Sydney, but you just don't like the surburbs or not meet your standard. Then You can't say ALL the houre prices are too high. Be reaslistic not everyone can live in the place they want to live.

  • In what country would its citizens want international buyers buying up local residential real estate?

    Crazy.

  • No, I don’t think this would not work in Australia

    Huh?

  • +2

    In Canda foreign participation in the market is, at most, 3 to 6 percent.

    This is just playing politics by taking some headline action with no impact.

    CMHC asked for the percentage of homes owned by investors whose permanent residence is overseas. The results were much lower than many had expected. The survey found that roughly 2.4 per cent of Toronto condos and 2.3 per cent of condos in Vancouver were owned by overseas investors.9 Mar 2022

  • +1

    It won’t change a thing. Chinese only buy very expensive properties.

  • +3

    Too many politicians have massive housing portfolios to let it happen.

  • +1

    Stop the foreigners - Australian property for Australians!

    People that sell out and profit from property sales to foreign interests should be named and shamed.

    As well as a 75% tax should be imposed on all foreign property transactions (PR included as they are not citizens at all)

    • +2

      Have an Aussie mate who's family has been here for generations told me back in 2015 she's putting up her property in QLD and hoping to sell to a Chinese investor.

      Point of this is, Aussies harping on about foreigners buying but when the shoe is on the overfoot and they're selling, they're of course willing to sell it to foreigners if it garners them the highest bid.

      • +1

        Exactly right. Just like how everyone complains offshoring foreigners are taking Aussie jobs but they forget it’s your Aussie companies and Aussie owners who prefer to outsource to save a buck than hire expensive Aussies

        • While true, those that sell up be it for another country or to start a different business, no Matter what Australia will always be home when you realise why.

  • +1

    I guess, I'll save up to buy a property I can call my own in Kenya. Near impossible to imagine buying one back home in my lifetime.

    • Shouldn't be too hard to save $1.

  • Rare Trudeau W

    Also yes I agree that we should be doing the same.

  • +2

    I see so many houses just dormant with no one in them because someone overseas wants a property for when they pop over every third year or so.

  • +1

    Yet another example of someone reading a headline without bothering to find out all of the facts.
    It's only for 2 years and has quite a few exceptions.

    "However, the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act comes with many exceptions. It allows immigrants and permanent residents of Canada who are not citizens to purchase homes. It also does not apply to students and refugees.

    The prohibition applies only in “census metropolitan areas” and “census agglomerations” — basically, cities that meet certain population criteria — and not to vacation homes in “recreational areas”, reports The New York Times (NYT). However, the law does not apply to home buyers with Canadian spouses or partners and foreigners buying multifamily >dwellings with more than three units."

    • -3

      its obviously racism since they didn't seem to ban "profiteers, wealthy corporations"

      • Profiteers and wealthy corporations are not a race

        • -1

          exactly they were concentrating on race, when putting forward this ban to get election votes
          people like to discriminate

  • just have mortgage rate at 7% properties won't go anywhere fast it will deter a lot of people from speculating
    and investors will seriously reconsider buying those extra properties.

    stripped out demands with high-rate properties has one way to go

    • +1

      Wont do a thing.

      The high rates only hurt owner occupiers, investors write off the higher interest payments and up the rent.

      • Doesn't matter if owner occupied or investors, high rates hurt properties and when it hurt properties it has only one to go
        and that is down, so most measures do not work except higher rate, so if they want to cool housing and stop demand and drive down price jack up rate for 5 years you will see properties price will drop.

        Australia don't need to do anything as long as rate stayed high, properties will start the marching down
        another two quarters of decline and all gained during the pandemic is wiped out, what happened after that will
        be up to once again the interest rate.

        Why properties were crazy during the Pandemics, well cheap money, now the tide turns the other ways, as rate goes up it start to wiping out all the gains that was attained during cheap money Erra, the longer rate stayed high the worse it gets for properties.

    • You are saying supply will go down, while demand will continue to go up but prices will fall.
      I suggest you rethink that.

  • If you're going to create a poll, try not to use loaded questions/answers, if you want accurate results.

    • If they wanted real results they wouldn't have posted like that. It's just some xeno making assumptions and riling the crowds.

  • That law is FULL OF LOOPHOLES.
    It bans some people from some areas for upto 2 years (I read the reddit post discussing it therefore I am epxter).

  • The correct answer is to open the door for large super, hedge funds and businesses to be allowed to purchase residential property to pump up those numbers.

    • An accelerationist.
  • We already do this. You need permanent residency or citizenship to own a home.

    Foreign investors still buy via proxy though.

    • They need policies or background checks of buyers so Proxy be forbidden

      • They do one better. They let them buy it then strip it off them when they audit down the line.

    • You need permanent residency or citizenship to own a home.

      Source please @jaimex2 ?

  • Yes do it!

  • +1

    The poll question is very misleading. Of course everyone wants the property price to be affordable but by clicking yes to this question it gives a validity for a Justin Trudeau like policy decision to implement what is clearly discriminatory (let alone working, there is another article debating is and the experts verdict unanimously was it wont make a difference but agreed it was populist).

    It is a bit like having a poll asking "Do you want free money?" And then linking the poll to the story about a law that allows ex appropriating (aka legalized stealing) money from people's saving account to pay for people with less cash in their account.

    • decision to implement what is clearly discriminatory

      How is it discriminatory?

  • love the Canadians.

  • Lots of overseas black money gone through benami. So it will continue even in Canada.
    Btw the damage is done. The average income Australian cannot buy property these days. No house with a payment plant less than $1,000 per fortnight payment in any major cities.

  • We do kinda. But they use local 'surrogates' to buy property here so it doesn't change much.

  • No brainer, yes. I don't care if my property goes up in value slightly, I care more about the relative wage to property ratio, and if all properties are lowered in demand, that helps everyone.

  • +1

    The poll options are crap
    The assumption is blocking overseas investors will make property prices go down.
    That's a big if.
    It will certainly reduce supply, which will put upward pressure on prices.

  • If the government truly wants to reduce housing prices, this is not the way to do it.
    Developers will shelve projects that no longer make financial sense as potential buyers are locked out.
    There will be less housing supply.

    If you truly want affordable housing, you should be asking government to:
    - Loosen the planning laws. Red tape and NIMBY-ism has limited medium and higher density housing and adds to development costs. Developments end up caught in council / VCAT for years with every neighbouring Tom Dick and Harriet wanting their demands met.
    - Replace stamp duty with an annual land tax. This would stop the disincentive to downsize for older Australians due to stamp duty costs with moving. NSW is already onto this.
    - Add the PPOR to the asset test for the aged pension. This would encourage older Australians with large homes to downsize, providing more housing for younger generations. Won't happen as it is not politically popular to target boomers. Foreigners are an easier political target.
    - Encourage foreign investment with mandates for the majority of the homes constructed to go to Australian citizens.

  • China doesn't let us own property there, why should we let them buy property here. (China is one example, dont know about the other countries)

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