Australia to triple fees on foreigners buying existing homes, penalise them if they leave properties empty

filoria@lemmy.ml to World News@lemmy.world – 843 points –
Australia triples fees on foreign buyers of existing homes to stem rental crisis
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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.

Vancouver: https://vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/experts-say-foreign-buyer-ban-wont-bite-b-c-real-estate-prices

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?

https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/students-own-over-57m-worth-of-ritzy-vancouver-real-estate-say_n_12032930

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.