Why limit these fees to foreigners? Why not penalize anyone who is leaving properties empty?
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Vancouver, BC in Canada did the same, though they actually fully banned foreign property purchasing. I'm guessing it's low hanging fruit that won't get much pushback within the country. Hopefully these are just first steps, in both cases.
Really wish fucking anything were being done in the US.
That was a temporary 2 year ban on foriegn buyers, but it was too little too late. They already injected too much money and equity in to the market. I'm sure there's a way around it too. Corporations can still buy property. And once the ban is lifted it's back to normal and the prices are still fucked even with the temporary ban.
Temp residents, including students, also aren't included in the temporary ban which makes it basically useless
Ah yes, the true cause of the preposterous housing market… college students.
My point was about foreign investors avoiding the ban through international students
Foreign students that pay atleast twice the tuition that local students do. And also roll up in luxury vehicles. You think those students don't also have big expensive houses?
They are either "students" or are being funded their parents. Either way they are complicit.
It kinda sounds like they are people living in their homes lol
I don’t see why I should care where they live so long as they’re actually living in the place. They obviously need a place to stay, shouldn’t be forced into renting, and I don’t know what would be accomplished by putting a cap on how nice of a place they can buy.
Edit:
Students Own Over $57M Worth Of Ritzy Vancouver Real Estate
$57M? So what, like 100 apartments, max?
Edit 2:
The least expensive home was $1.85 million, while the priciest came in at $31.1 million.
Oh okay so like 5 lol
So they will just create local shell companies. Didn't solve any problem.
Yeah they really need to fix that in the US.. there also needs to be a very significant reduction of property tax for individuals that are enterprising enough to rehab zombie properties. Go to like any city in the US, and you'll find so many homes that are sitting abandoned because the city has assessed them for such astronomical prices that no investor will touch them due to their condition.. The only option becomes to demolish them at taxpayer expense as they fall deeper and deeper into disrepair.
Last I saw half the elected lawmakers have investment properties.
They'll never make any laws that will impose additional requirements or possibly impact property prices negatively.
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I can't read that whole article but yeah doesn't make sense.. a foreigner could just set up a trust which then purchases the property and leaves it vacant and you're back to square one.
You could become rich with that idea if it wasn't exactly what they started doing!
Because there’s a big difference between an empty apartment in a city and an empty half the year holiday home out in the bush used by the whole family.
And why not give Australians an advantage in our own country? I’m fine with American companies having to pay more taxes towards us.
If you can afford a holiday home, you have enough of an advantage already
Mate, I earn below median wage and I could buy a “holiday home”. This isn’t something fancy, it’s a shitty old house in the bush.
What I can’t afford is a house where jobs and people are, the city.
I think a lot of people hear holiday home and think like, tropical bungalow. A holiday home here in Sweden usually won't have a sewage connection, and oftentimes not even running water. You'd have to use a potty and bring potable water yourself. You could get these pretty cheap so long as you're in a position where you have some money left over after expenses.
A proper house will easily be 10x the amount a holiday home is.
There are fancier ones of course, that can basically double as a home. Anyone I know that has such a thing owns it as a family (as in grandparents, siblings, etc.).
I think people are picturing that, because that's what's been happening elsewhere; foreign investors using luxury real estate as an investment.
Well yes, not saying those aren’t a thing, but they’re not the only type of holiday homes. It’s not unfeasible for a normal person living above subsistence to be able to afford a holiday home.
Saying “oh you have a holiday home you’ve enough of an advantage” doesn’t really work in all cases.
A holiday home is a second home. If you don't have a home already and that's what you purchase, it's not your holiday home, it's your only home.
They mention "the city", I interpret it as the same situation as what used to be mine, owned my main residence in a city but not in THE city so prices are lower but most jobs are outside of the city I lived in, that allowed me to buy a second residence out in the woods for cheap, but I couldn't live there full time (no water in winter, floor isn't insulated).
If you don’t live there, it’s not your home.
So wouldn’t the fees be proportional to the price? The added taxes on a tiny cheap holiday home would be cheap too.
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The best way to give domestic workers an advantage would be to really raise property taxes, but make them subtractable as a tax credit. Credit.. not deductible, so overall tax burden on workers would be lower.
This would be an easy and logical step away from taxing labour and moving to taxation of land.
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Unoccupied housing in growth areas needs to be taxed mercilessly.
And taxes on non-multifamily rental properties should also be physically painful for the owners.
How many properties are currently affected by this? 6 times the taxes is mentioned, but how much is that per property and in total? It's odd. This is the second time I've seen this story and that relevant information is missing in each one. It reads more like a government press release to make it look like they are doing something but it's window dressing only. We need structural reform in housing. Not just in Australia, but worldwide. It's a necessity, not an asset.
It's an ongoing fee. The initial fee is raised by 3 times, and if the property is empty for more than 6 months of the year, they are charged twice the fee (so 6 times what the fee currently is, which starts at $13200aud and is up to $105600aud depending on the value of the property)
This means it will cost tens of thousands of dollars up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, each year, to leave it empty over half the year
Yeah. The article doesn't go into details whether vacancy is self reported and what enforcement looks like.
The cynic in me says this is a great political policy, but something foreign investors will sidestep with minimal effort.
Is it based on water consumption? Leave a tap dripping.
Is it based on electricity consumption? Leave a light on.
Is it based on garbage being collected? A friend takes your bins out once every couple of months.
I want these policies to work to better support Australians with more housing options, but I'm not convinced this is enough.
Haven't read the article- does it explain why are there so many empty properties? I didn't know this was a thing. I'm glad they're finally coming along with regulations though
Chinese and boomer investors.
I'm aware of who but not why. Are they just letting them sit there until the prices rise ( I know that doesn't take too long)? Or is there another reason?
yes ,becuase the house prices in Australia rise so fast it's actully profitable to buy one outright (if you can afford it) and literally let it sit empty for 5 years ,sell it again and make hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars.
The when system (of capitalism) is ethically bankrupt and downright disgusting. Houses should be for homes, not profits.
I think Chinese people can't really invest in China because corruption and government can take everything you own without a reason.
Looking at property crisis in China https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-62402961
Not to mention bank crisis around China https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/11/china-violent-clashes-at-protest-over-frozen-rural-bank-accounts
So it makes sense to have a foreign investment + they can flee and live there if something should happen
That's usually the reason and the possibility of getting a citizenship (depending on what country the property is in it can help).
I’ve a friend in Taiwan. She says it’s common for rich Chinese people to buy homes in Taiwan as a way of locking down that money in a way the government can’t access it.
Fairly common scheme with Canada, rich Chinese buy a house in Canada, declare their taxes as being paid in Canada to Chinese authorities and being paid in China to Canadian authorities...
The different levels of Canadian governments get criticized for letting them buy properties and companies here when Canadians would never be allowed to do the same in China...
My friend in Taiwan is experiencing something similar. Their bank was all “oh yeah you can absolutely get a loan as a foreigner with us as long as your Taiwanese parent is willing to cosign”.
They already own the home, they’re just trying to restructure the mortgage after a breakup.
It’s ridiculous.
Money. The reason is always money.
The bogeyman reason is investors (and especially Chinese investors).
Suspect the real reason is they're a mix of holiday homes, near ruins, crap properties in crap locations, tangled up in a bunch of legal shit, inheritance proceedings, or the old person that owns it is in care.
There's a bunch of greed as well, but it's not worth leaving a property empty over renting it out for an exorbitant sum.
They're vehicles for foreign investment.
There are many, but one of the reasons is to buy a house in the catchment area of a good school. They child can attend and pretend they are living in the house but still live in the city
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