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City Officials Struggle To Fend Off "Unstoppable Juggernaut" Of Chinese Homebuyers


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2018 Jun 9, 4:31am   1,457 views  4 comments

by MisterLefty   ➕follow (1)   💰tip   ignore  

As we've pointed out time and time again, foreign - mainly Chinese - buyers seeking to park their ill-gotten gains beyond the reach of the Communist Party have - in addition to global capitals like New York City and London - favored a handful of cities in the Pacific Northwest, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Many of these cities - for example, Vancouver - have seen property values rise to levels that are unaffordable for local buyers.

While the influx of capital helped fuel an economic recovery in the aftermath of the crisis, home values soon reached crisis levels that demanded action by local officials. Some places have tried to use taxes to deter foreign buyers. In some instances, the taxes worked - at least temporarily.

But with the flow of buyers refusing to slow despite efforts by the Chinese government to stop money moving offshore, many of these cities are getting desperate. And after years of occasional headlines, it appears the crisis has finally become dire enough for the mainstream press to start paying attention.

To wit, government officials in Canada and Australia who spoke with the Wall Street Journal for a story about how Chinese homebuyers expressed concern that widespread foreign ownership has created bubbles in local real-estate markets. Even as Australia and New Zealand and some Canadian cities have raised taxes on foreign buyers, many are worried that home values will continue to climb, foiling policy makers best efforts to control them. Since it passed an 8% foreign buyers tax last summer, Sydney says foreign buying hasn't let up.

Jon Ellis, chief executive of Investorist, an online portal for cross-border property transactions, said Chinese property buyers are an "unstoppable juggernaut". In some markets with large Mandarin-speaking populations, locals can spot real-estate ads in Mandarin at bus stations and benches in the surrounding area. In response, Vancouver imposed a 15% foreign buyers tax back in 2016. When that didn't work, city officials worked with the province on something more aggressive.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-07/city-officials-struggle-fend-unstoppable-juggernaut-chinese-homebuyers

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1   Strategist   2018 Jun 9, 8:51am  

MisterLefty says
As we've pointed out time and time again, foreign - mainly Chinese - buyers seeking to park their ill-gotten gains beyond the reach of the Communist Party have - in addition to global capitals like New York City and London - favored a handful of cities in the Pacific Northwest, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Many of these cities - for example, Vancouver - have seen property values rise to levels that are unaffordable for local buyers.

While the influx of capital helped fuel an economic recovery in the aftermath of the crisis, home values soon reached crisis levels that demanded action by local officials. Some places have tried to use taxes to deter foreign buyers. In some instances, the taxes worked - at least temporarily.

But with the flow of buyers refusing to slow despite efforts by the Chinese government to stop money moving offshore, many of these cities are getting desperate. And after years of occasional headlines, it appears the crisis has finally become di...


Some cities taxing foreign buyers certainly won't stop the flow of Chinese money. It will just just get diverted to other cities that don't tax foreign buyers, like the BA and So Cal.
Another reason why California home prices will keep shooting up.
2   lostand confused   2018 Jun 9, 8:55am  

We don't these mythical Chinese come ehre where I live> One of my friends lost his job couldn't afford his abhorrent property taxes, along with health insurance . So put his house in the market and to sell quickly had to lower his price 20%. His mortgage is almost payed off, so not like he had to pay the balance to the bank, but this boom is not in all places. Another rfriend just retired and just didn't want to deal with property taxes and moved tot he border with Wisconsin. The democrats are just evil.
They want free trade for everyone, except for government workers.
3   mell   2018 Jun 9, 9:18am  

lostand confused says
We don't these mythical Chinese come ehre where I live> One of my friends lost his job couldn't afford his abhorrent property taxes, along with health insurance . So put his house in the market and to sell quickly had to lower his price 20%. His mortgage is almost payed off, so not like he had to pay the balance to the bank, but this boom is not in all places. Another rfriend just retired and just didn't want to deal with property taxes and moved tot he border with Wisconsin. The democrats are just evil.
They want free trade for everyone, except for government workers.


They want to stay close to their country - what better place than pacwest coastal cities with easy airport access. However this won't continue much longer. There will be a breaking point where too many Chinese will actually lower prices or cause more serious pushback. Now they are much better than other groups wrt keeping their hoods safe and usually have decent schools etc, so higher populations and even majorities are easier tolerated, but they are not without problems. The fabric of society has a natural balance and if you skew it too much it won't work.
4   RC2006   2018 Jun 9, 9:58am  

There are whole cities around LA that turned Chinese in a decade or two. I am sure its the same in other parts.

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