5 ms·

One one hand it’s legitimately a lot better when your money goes a heck of a lot further. On the other hand if this happened en masse it would ruin a lot of the

One one hand it’s legitimately a lot better when your money goes a heck of a lot further. On the other hand if this happened en masse it would ruin a lot of the lives of people who live and work there by making housing costs go up. At least they actually build housing to put people in SEA, unlike in the US where it’s considered detrimental to not limit the supply.

maerF0x0 5y ago
> by making housing costs go up. No, that will only happen if they don't build commensurate units and do not charge the foreigners a good "foreigner price". You're missing the part of the picture where a lot of Vietnamese get very rich (relative for VN) off the trend.
- thebean11 5y ago
  Why build anything for locals if you can charge "foreigner price"?
  - browningstreet 5y ago
    Still a lot of locals.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      Which doesn't matter if there are enough foreigners. Given the choice developers will build for the richer foreigners.
      - bigthymer 5y ago
        I think there is enough capacity to build for both so increasing richer foreigner demand is not slowing down the building to meet local demand.
        thebean11 5y ago
        Yeah I bet there is now, but what happens if tomorrow the government starts handing out tons of visas to remote workers and retirees?
  - currentoor 5y ago
    Why sell cheap fast food when you can charge michelin star prices?
    - munificent 5y ago
      I don't think this analogy conveys anything particularly useful. The reasons most restaurants don't charge Michelin star prices are: * Ingredient costs go up rapidly too. * Because of that, the profit margins are narrow in the restaurant business at all restaurant price levels. There are rich restauranteurs here and there but owning a high end restaurant is still a very risky business venture and many are barely scraping by. * You become talent bound. Finding chefs who can prepare food at that level is hard. Designing a good menu is very hard. Food is like any other creative art, you can't just arbitrarily decide to make amazing food—many try and fail. * There is limited demand. Most people can't afford to eat high end food often and even those who can often don't want to go to the same restaurant over and over. I don't see how any of this maps to the topic being discussed.
      - notahacker 5y ago
        If we're talking about construction work in South-East Asia, the same basic principles apply. Limited demand because there really aren't that many foreigners relative to locals (and some of the foreigners don't have more money than the local middle class anyway), and satisfying the foreigners' more exacting standards, weird ideas about construction and insistence on exotic materials needs more skill than most local construction workers possess, and competent English. That means most people in construction are only going to get to work for a wealthy Westerner through a middleman, and that middleman is going to pay them the standard local rates.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Local demand is much larger than foreigner demand, catering just to foreigners leaves a lot of profit uncollected. If foreigner demand is unlimited, then sure, all the capital will simply chase their money, but it’s quite impossible where foreigners make up a small minority of the population.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  Spanish estate agents selling property in Valencia for foreigners drive very nice BMWs I can tell you. Capitalism, unlike what Marx claims,does not exploit. It co-opts. The locals always get their share. Some more than others perhaps but what can you do?
eric-hu 5y ago
Isn’t that a free market at play? What would you suggest as an alternative?
- yanmaani 5y ago
  Now actually, I think the Vietnamese know a thing or two about alternatives to the free market.
- taurath 5y ago
  The free market is not in play when doing cross border real estate deals, because if countries allowed foreigners to buy up all their land they wouldn't really have much of a country anymore eventually.
  - TheGigaChad 5y ago
adamsmith143 5y ago
>On the other hand if this happened en masse it would ruin a lot of the lives of people who live and work there by making housing costs go up. Can't speak for Vietnam but in Thailand, a place also targeted for retirement by westerners, foreigners can't buy property at all.
- petesergeant 5y ago
  > foreigners can't buy property at all ... is not true. You're thinking of land. There are heavy restrictions, but condo ownership -- for example -- is usually straight-forward. Also, it's possible to get a 30-year lease on land, which for a retiree is probably going to be sufficient.
  - CitizenKane 5y ago
    And as far as I know will not be true at all soon. The new digital nomad visa being introduced (along with a few others) appears it's also going to allow ownership of up to 1 rai of land for residential purposes.
    - petesergeant 5y ago
      > new digital nomad visa being introduced I would implore you to not hold your breath on this
      - CitizenKane 5y ago
        Normally I would agree, and there's been talk of it for an extended period of time. However to my knowledge it's already been approved https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/visa/10-year-visa-gets-approval-of-cabinet-ministries-preparing-rules https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/visa/10-year-visa-gets-appro... I can't speak for your situation, but I spent 3 months in Thailand and folks were hurting badly from everything related to the pandemic. Tourism is way down, and lockdowns have hurt there like everywhere else. I'd never rule out Thai government incompetency, but they're in between a rock and a hard place at the moment and looking for ways out.
CountDrewku 5y ago
AniseAbyss 5y ago
Housing costs tend to go up with economic development. I had a discussion about this with a Portuguese guy once: you have the lazy communist bastard who wants everything to stay the same, and you have the smart entrepreneur who makes lots of € selling overpriced coffee to the pale hordes from the North.
- heartbeats 5y ago
  It's a Red Queen's race, though. Because the housing costs go up, the standard of living remains the same. The end result is a less moral society, because people have to change to stranger and stranger business just to keep their place in the hierarchy. Instead of having a normal ('communist') job, you have to get involved in dirty tourism stuff. The end result of this is as in New York City or San Fransisco, where anyone with a 'normal' job has obviously had rent go up way more than income. Granted, they too could go into tech or finance, but the benefits to society of this are most unclear.

maerF0x0 5y ago

> by making housing costs go up. No, that will only happen if they don't build commensurate units and do not charge the foreigners a good "foreigner price". You're missing the part of the picture where a lot of Vietnamese get very rich (relative for VN) off the trend.

thebean11 5y ago
Why build anything for locals if you can charge "foreigner price"?
- browningstreet 5y ago
  Still a lot of locals.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    Which doesn't matter if there are enough foreigners. Given the choice developers will build for the richer foreigners.
    - bigthymer 5y ago
      I think there is enough capacity to build for both so increasing richer foreigner demand is not slowing down the building to meet local demand.
      - thebean11 5y ago
        Yeah I bet there is now, but what happens if tomorrow the government starts handing out tons of visas to remote workers and retirees?
- currentoor 5y ago
  Why sell cheap fast food when you can charge michelin star prices?
  - munificent 5y ago
    I don't think this analogy conveys anything particularly useful. The reasons most restaurants don't charge Michelin star prices are: * Ingredient costs go up rapidly too. * Because of that, the profit margins are narrow in the restaurant business at all restaurant price levels. There are rich restauranteurs here and there but owning a high end restaurant is still a very risky business venture and many are barely scraping by. * You become talent bound. Finding chefs who can prepare food at that level is hard. Designing a good menu is very hard. Food is like any other creative art, you can't just arbitrarily decide to make amazing food—many try and fail. * There is limited demand. Most people can't afford to eat high end food often and even those who can often don't want to go to the same restaurant over and over. I don't see how any of this maps to the topic being discussed.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      If we're talking about construction work in South-East Asia, the same basic principles apply. Limited demand because there really aren't that many foreigners relative to locals (and some of the foreigners don't have more money than the local middle class anyway), and satisfying the foreigners' more exacting standards, weird ideas about construction and insistence on exotic materials needs more skill than most local construction workers possess, and competent English. That means most people in construction are only going to get to work for a wealthy Westerner through a middleman, and that middleman is going to pay them the standard local rates.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Local demand is much larger than foreigner demand, catering just to foreigners leaves a lot of profit uncollected. If foreigner demand is unlimited, then sure, all the capital will simply chase their money, but it’s quite impossible where foreigners make up a small minority of the population.
CountDrewku 5y ago
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Spanish estate agents selling property in Valencia for foreigners drive very nice BMWs I can tell you. Capitalism, unlike what Marx claims,does not exploit. It co-opts. The locals always get their share. Some more than others perhaps but what can you do?

eric-hu 5y ago

Isn’t that a free market at play? What would you suggest as an alternative?

yanmaani 5y ago
Now actually, I think the Vietnamese know a thing or two about alternatives to the free market.
taurath 5y ago
The free market is not in play when doing cross border real estate deals, because if countries allowed foreigners to buy up all their land they wouldn't really have much of a country anymore eventually.
- TheGigaChad 5y ago

adamsmith143 5y ago

>On the other hand if this happened en masse it would ruin a lot of the lives of people who live and work there by making housing costs go up. Can't speak for Vietnam but in Thailand, a place also targeted for retirement by westerners, foreigners can't buy property at all.

petesergeant 5y ago
> foreigners can't buy property at all ... is not true. You're thinking of land. There are heavy restrictions, but condo ownership -- for example -- is usually straight-forward. Also, it's possible to get a 30-year lease on land, which for a retiree is probably going to be sufficient.
- CitizenKane 5y ago
  And as far as I know will not be true at all soon. The new digital nomad visa being introduced (along with a few others) appears it's also going to allow ownership of up to 1 rai of land for residential purposes.
  - petesergeant 5y ago
    > new digital nomad visa being introduced I would implore you to not hold your breath on this
    - CitizenKane 5y ago
      Normally I would agree, and there's been talk of it for an extended period of time. However to my knowledge it's already been approved https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/visa/10-year-visa-gets-approval-of-cabinet-ministries-preparing-rules https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/visa/10-year-visa-gets-appro... I can't speak for your situation, but I spent 3 months in Thailand and folks were hurting badly from everything related to the pandemic. Tourism is way down, and lockdowns have hurt there like everywhere else. I'd never rule out Thai government incompetency, but they're in between a rock and a hard place at the moment and looking for ways out.

CountDrewku 5y ago

AniseAbyss 5y ago

Housing costs tend to go up with economic development. I had a discussion about this with a Portuguese guy once: you have the lazy communist bastard who wants everything to stay the same, and you have the smart entrepreneur who makes lots of € selling overpriced coffee to the pale hordes from the North.

heartbeats 5y ago
It's a Red Queen's race, though. Because the housing costs go up, the standard of living remains the same. The end result is a less moral society, because people have to change to stranger and stranger business just to keep their place in the hierarchy. Instead of having a normal ('communist') job, you have to get involved in dirty tourism stuff. The end result of this is as in New York City or San Fransisco, where anyone with a 'normal' job has obviously had rent go up way more than income. Granted, they too could go into tech or finance, but the benefits to society of this are most unclear.