4 ms·

> All real estate is local. > The flood of expat money (foreign investment) these two statements are contradictory

by A2017U1 8y ago

PakG1 8y ago
The supply is local, the demand not necessarily so. Hence Vancouver's recent tax on foreign buyers.
- commaone 8y ago
  I'd venture to say this should get more attention than it does. Real estate was local. Glass-steagal (sp?) changed who is valuing the property and from where. Putting pressure on home values based on skewed national or international perspectives that are completely non-local.
ThrowMeDown01 8y ago
No, why? The expat money went into local markets (very unequally but that's another point). Vancouver, London, etc. But even in small towns real estate investors are not necessarily local. My mother just moved into an apartment owned by a lawyer living a few hundred kilometers away. It depends on what you understand when OP says "all real estate is local", I assume that it's the thing itself and its customers. It can be seen as inexact because yes, the investors often are not and that is that second statement, but we all know what OP meant, so no need to start nitpicking over nothing. I see no merit in arguing over words whose meaning everybody understands just for the sake of it.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  At the high end, the money didn't go anywhere, except possibly offshore. A lot of London real estate was being built explicitly as an investment, and the offshore investors - who are now being cleaned out - handed over their money to developer/speculator companies, who were also offshore and/or foreign owned. So no - this real estate is not local. It happens to have a physical location, but when you understand how the money associated with it does it best to avoid spreading out into the surroundings, it might as well be built on an uninhabited atoll in the Pacific. At the low end in London the money went to landlords who bought large portfolios with the financial assistance of buy-to-let loans and tax breaks. The tax breaks are being removed, and interest rates are drifting upwards. This is killing casual landlords, but isn't a problem for the sharks and the rabbit hutch 10-gig-economy-workers-in-a-room slumlords.

> All real estate is local. > The flood of expat money (foreign investment) these two statements are contradictory

PakG1 8y ago

The supply is local, the demand not necessarily so. Hence Vancouver's recent tax on foreign buyers.

commaone 8y ago
I'd venture to say this should get more attention than it does. Real estate was local. Glass-steagal (sp?) changed who is valuing the property and from where. Putting pressure on home values based on skewed national or international perspectives that are completely non-local.

ThrowMeDown01 8y ago

No, why? The expat money went into local markets (very unequally but that's another point). Vancouver, London, etc. But even in small towns real estate investors are not necessarily local. My mother just moved into an apartment owned by a lawyer living a few hundred kilometers away. It depends on what you understand when OP says "all real estate is local", I assume that it's the thing itself and its customers. It can be seen as inexact because yes, the investors often are not and that is that second statement, but we all know what OP meant, so no need to start nitpicking over nothing. I see no merit in arguing over words whose meaning everybody understands just for the sake of it.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
At the high end, the money didn't go anywhere, except possibly offshore. A lot of London real estate was being built explicitly as an investment, and the offshore investors - who are now being cleaned out - handed over their money to developer/speculator companies, who were also offshore and/or foreign owned. So no - this real estate is not local. It happens to have a physical location, but when you understand how the money associated with it does it best to avoid spreading out into the surroundings, it might as well be built on an uninhabited atoll in the Pacific. At the low end in London the money went to landlords who bought large portfolios with the financial assistance of buy-to-let loans and tax breaks. The tax breaks are being removed, and interest rates are drifting upwards. This is killing casual landlords, but isn't a problem for the sharks and the rabbit hutch 10-gig-economy-workers-in-a-room slumlords.