More Debate Over Foreign Home Buyers

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently announced plans to track foreign home buyers in Canada and, perhaps, to impose limitations on the purchase of Canadian real estate by non-nationals. His concerns: inflated real estate prices and empty residences.

Harper, photo by Alex Guibord

As I’ve mentioned before, controversy surrounding the purchase of real estate by foreign nationals isn’t limited to Canada. The UK has faced its own concerns about “hollowed out” neighborhoods bought out by foreign investors and left uninhabited.

Parts of the United States (principally NYC) have seen upticks in the purchase of real estate by foreign investors, including through the EB-5 program. Yet I’ve see no reports of such investments leading to swaths of uninhabited neighborhoods. 

Fears over foreign nationals acquiring real estate change over time. During the U.S. housing collapse, some legislators explicitly sought to entice foreign nationals to purchase U.S. homes in order to boost the flagging market. And back in the day, the United States offered land to foreigners willing to settle the wild west.

Time will tell whether PM Harper will be able to garner enough political support for his plans to track and potentially end the purchase of Canadian homes by foreigners. But I suspect it will be short lived.

-KitJ