Vancouver slaps $10K a year tax on empty homes. $10K a day for lying about it

[Independent voter]

Well, you can't blame Chinese. People simply want to invest their money, and your government that allows them to do so.

But even if your government didn't allow foreigners to buy property, or made it much more problematic for them to buy one, RE companies would use "proxies" (a group of trusted local individuals or companies whose names are used for paperwork) to register apartments that were bought by foreigners.

The latter is Thailand's case, it's more expensive and more problematic to buy and register property if you're a foreigner, so we use proxies

P.S. And personally I can't blame RE agents for preferring cold cash over mortgages T_T

They get dual Canadian/Chinese citizenship right? I think that's what they are after, they might need a house or residency to do that.

[Aggrophobic]

It's an issue because of shit like this:

http://www.rew.ca/properties/R212229...e=vancouver-bc
http://www.rew.ca/properties/R212195...e=vancouver-bc
http://www.rew.ca/properties/R212191...e=vancouver-bc

Meanwhile for similar price in Calgary, you could live in this fuckin craziness...

http://www.royallepage.ca/en/propert...9/mlsc4065428/

The Chinese speculation into the Vancouver and Toronto housing market has driven values up by ridiculous fuckin' amounts out there. It was bad enough just by virtue of it being Vancouver and not exactly a ton of usable land to build homes on, but the speculation has vaulted values so high it's damn near impossible for any old joe schmoe and family to buy a home.

Anything to cool the market out there is more than needed. But at this point, it might be too late, so many people are going to get it up the ass on their property values.

I... ehm... Ouch!

[ls-]

They get dual Canadian/Chinese citizenship right? I think that's what they are after, they might need a house or residency to do that.

Yeah, but that's true only to a certain extent. Chinese buy property anywhere, even if country doesn't provide any nice bonuses for owning property

[Keosen]

It's an issue because of shit like this:

http://www.rew.ca/properties/R212229...e=vancouver-bc
http://www.rew.ca/properties/R212195...e=vancouver-bc
http://www.rew.ca/properties/R212191...e=vancouver-bc

Meanwhile for similar price in Calgary, you could live in this fuckin craziness...

http://www.royallepage.ca/en/propert...9/mlsc4065428/

The Chinese speculation into the Vancouver and Toronto housing market has driven values up by ridiculous fuckin' amounts out there. It was bad enough just by virtue of it being Vancouver and not exactly a ton of usable land to build homes on, but the speculation has vaulted values so high it's damn near impossible for any old joe schmoe and family to buy a home.

Anything to cool the market out there is more than needed. But at this point, it might be too late, so many people are going to get it up the ass on their property values.

What the actual fuck?
Are people seriously buying these?

[Yvaelle]

What the actual fuck?
Are people seriously buying these?

Yep. Then they usually drop a couple hundred K to tear down and clean up the lot, then they consider building something on it for a couple million.