Here's the thing about housing:
The delegates insisted on one hand that “housing is for living not speculation”, but on the other, emphasised the critical importance of real estate to China’s economic growth.
In other words, things are complicated. We want housing to be affordable to more people, but at the same time, we recognize that housing appreciation is kind of useful for overall economic growth. So we're a bit conflicted. And that may be why we tend to take contradictory actions.
Broadly speaking, the current playbook in Canada seems to be as follows: heavily tax new housing, force those who can afford new market-rate housing to subsidize those who can't, and then tax/ban foreign buyers.
https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1611177601220968449?s=20&t=6fy7zjUvjlQEEEhYKURIGQ
Canada's new foreign buyer ban came into effect on January 1 of this year. And for the next 2 years, it prohibits companies and people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents from acquiring non-recreational, residential property in Canada. (What is the definition of non-recreational?)
While this may sound good to some -- finally, more homes for Canadians -- we're talking about a relatively small portion of the market, which is likely why there's also little evidence that any of our foreign buyer taxes have been all that effective.
It's really hard to imagine this one working much better. But it certainly sounds like something.
