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Well #1 is not 'straightfoward' fixes at all. Massive Real Estate buildouts are 'gigantic' industrial projects. A 'straight forward fix' is to ban foreign owne

Well #1 is not 'straightfoward' fixes at all. Massive Real Estate buildouts are 'gigantic' industrial projects. A 'straight forward fix' is to ban foreign ownership of homes and AirBnB. Poof. Now, I wouldn't support that, but it would be 'straight forward'. #2 is reasonable. #3 is a big glib tough. "Hey, everyone should just get a raise!", if it were only that easy!

DrNosferatu 4y ago
1. "banning foreign ownership" would result in Portugalexit at best, perhaps a Zairization of Portugal, or even worse - no thanks. What's wrong with large industrial projects? It's exactly what we need at this moment - in fact, both Portugal and EU-scale. This would cost a small fraction of the Quantitative Easing program from the European Central Bank. (and these Massive Real Estate buildouts must include the lessons in Urbanism learned from past such projects) 2. (y) 3. State sector raises salaries, private sector is forced to follow. Just raising minimum wage is positive, but not enough. This tends to compress people to the bottom salary tier and promote even more brain drain.
- jollybean 4y ago
  Large industrial projects are gigantic efforts that involve billions of dollars and years/decades to take effect, massive capital requirements. And risk. "State sector raises salaries, private sector is forced to follow." ... my god man, no, that's not how it works. More like: "Already inefficient state bureaucracies raise salaries, attracting workers from private sector who cannot afford to pay higher wages, requiring massive budgetary increase from government i.e. 'more taxes' just as economy goes into tailspin due to private sector layoffs. Probably the EU needs to re-think the fact that it's designed to send all young workers to Germany or at least out of Portugual/Spain/S. Italy and Greece and leave them as octegenarian tourist centres with illegal Turkish workers doing the actual work. Either 1) the EU starts massive transfer payments or 2) get rid of the Euro and have some limits on mobility, or it will just limp along. #1 might require political and fiscal integration which would probably just exasperate the problem. In the short term, they should probably raise taxes on foreign home ownership.
  - DrNosferatu 4y ago
    Large industrial projects brought most of the civilization advances we enjoy today: What were then Concorde, the US Interstate Highway System, LHC, Hoover Dam and the Apollo Program? But yes, Europe needs a genuine Hamiltonian Moment (share the debt burden) and also a genuine New Deal, instead of the current beggar-thy-neighbor EU order where Germany & friends benefit all.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  (1). why not just make it painful to be a foreigner there. Raise taxes on rent/property if you're foreign by 3-4x (or whatever makes sense after an analysis of building new housing from foreigner tax dollars). If you don't want to scare off the ones already there then make it not retroactive. People like to make these situations tougher than they need to be. Mostly it's impossible because politicians are paid off by the 1% (foreign and domestic). The Portuguese have a right to enjoy their country without foreigners coming in and buying it off and pushing them to the edge of poverty. Globalism has got us in a tenuous situation in the West depending completely on the likes of China for our style of living. I can understand the Portuguese being angry with the situation.
  - unmole 4y ago
    > why not just make it painful to be a foreigner there In a country with a TFR of ~1.4 and a median age of ~47. What could possibly go wrong? It's not like Portugal is seeing a declining population or anything. Oh, wait.
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  > 1. "banning foreign ownership" would result in Portugalexit at best, perhaps a Zairization of Portugal, or even worse - no thanks. What? This makes no sense. You basically leave out a large chunk of the induced demand. There you have your prices lowering.
Tiktaalik 4y ago
> Poof This has pretty much already been done in Vancouver, which has layers of Foreign Buyer Taxes, Speculation Taxes, Empty Home Taxes and strict Airbnb regulation. It absolutely did not make the problem go 'poof.' All these things were well worth doing and helped in various ways, but it remains that the core underlying problem is that there's not enough homes for everyone and scarcity ensures high rents and high prices. The dull solution is that a hell of a lot of homes need to be built.
- jollybean 4y ago
  It has not been done in earnest in Vancouver. There's a 15 point 'one time' fee but it likely should be more, and/or an ongoing assessment i.e. higher annual taxes. Moreover, Canada gives away citizenship like candy and families have their kids live there. AirBnB is still running strong as well, which should be much more heavily taxed.
  - Tiktaalik 4y ago
    The government still keeps track of the amount of foreign buyers. It has plunged. It's likely that if it was a still a problem people would be doing something more but it's marginal at this point. The biggest impacts have already happened. We had developers building hyper luxury condos explicitly marketed to an asian audience and overnight with the foreign buyer tax everyone stopped making those and the same developers have pivoted to building purpose built rental for locals. The taxes worked. There's still a housing crisis.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- mistermann 4y ago
  There's been nothing even remotely close to a ban, and it's highly uncertain the degree to which the new rules are even enforced. As with most things, Canadians are expected to Trust The Experts....and trust them they do!

DrNosferatu 4y ago

1. "banning foreign ownership" would result in Portugalexit at best, perhaps a Zairization of Portugal, or even worse - no thanks. What's wrong with large industrial projects? It's exactly what we need at this moment - in fact, both Portugal and EU-scale. This would cost a small fraction of the Quantitative Easing program from the European Central Bank. (and these Massive Real Estate buildouts must include the lessons in Urbanism learned from past such projects) 2. (y) 3. State sector raises salaries, private sector is forced to follow. Just raising minimum wage is positive, but not enough. This tends to compress people to the bottom salary tier and promote even more brain drain.

jollybean 4y ago
Large industrial projects are gigantic efforts that involve billions of dollars and years/decades to take effect, massive capital requirements. And risk. "State sector raises salaries, private sector is forced to follow." ... my god man, no, that's not how it works. More like: "Already inefficient state bureaucracies raise salaries, attracting workers from private sector who cannot afford to pay higher wages, requiring massive budgetary increase from government i.e. 'more taxes' just as economy goes into tailspin due to private sector layoffs. Probably the EU needs to re-think the fact that it's designed to send all young workers to Germany or at least out of Portugual/Spain/S. Italy and Greece and leave them as octegenarian tourist centres with illegal Turkish workers doing the actual work. Either 1) the EU starts massive transfer payments or 2) get rid of the Euro and have some limits on mobility, or it will just limp along. #1 might require political and fiscal integration which would probably just exasperate the problem. In the short term, they should probably raise taxes on foreign home ownership.
- DrNosferatu 4y ago
  Large industrial projects brought most of the civilization advances we enjoy today: What were then Concorde, the US Interstate Highway System, LHC, Hoover Dam and the Apollo Program? But yes, Europe needs a genuine Hamiltonian Moment (share the debt burden) and also a genuine New Deal, instead of the current beggar-thy-neighbor EU order where Germany & friends benefit all.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
(1). why not just make it painful to be a foreigner there. Raise taxes on rent/property if you're foreign by 3-4x (or whatever makes sense after an analysis of building new housing from foreigner tax dollars). If you don't want to scare off the ones already there then make it not retroactive. People like to make these situations tougher than they need to be. Mostly it's impossible because politicians are paid off by the 1% (foreign and domestic). The Portuguese have a right to enjoy their country without foreigners coming in and buying it off and pushing them to the edge of poverty. Globalism has got us in a tenuous situation in the West depending completely on the likes of China for our style of living. I can understand the Portuguese being angry with the situation.
- unmole 4y ago
  > why not just make it painful to be a foreigner there In a country with a TFR of ~1.4 and a median age of ~47. What could possibly go wrong? It's not like Portugal is seeing a declining population or anything. Oh, wait.
spaniard89277 4y ago
> 1. "banning foreign ownership" would result in Portugalexit at best, perhaps a Zairization of Portugal, or even worse - no thanks. What? This makes no sense. You basically leave out a large chunk of the induced demand. There you have your prices lowering.

Tiktaalik 4y ago

> Poof This has pretty much already been done in Vancouver, which has layers of Foreign Buyer Taxes, Speculation Taxes, Empty Home Taxes and strict Airbnb regulation. It absolutely did not make the problem go 'poof.' All these things were well worth doing and helped in various ways, but it remains that the core underlying problem is that there's not enough homes for everyone and scarcity ensures high rents and high prices. The dull solution is that a hell of a lot of homes need to be built.

jollybean 4y ago
It has not been done in earnest in Vancouver. There's a 15 point 'one time' fee but it likely should be more, and/or an ongoing assessment i.e. higher annual taxes. Moreover, Canada gives away citizenship like candy and families have their kids live there. AirBnB is still running strong as well, which should be much more heavily taxed.
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  The government still keeps track of the amount of foreign buyers. It has plunged. It's likely that if it was a still a problem people would be doing something more but it's marginal at this point. The biggest impacts have already happened. We had developers building hyper luxury condos explicitly marketed to an asian audience and overnight with the foreign buyer tax everyone stopped making those and the same developers have pivoted to building purpose built rental for locals. The taxes worked. There's still a housing crisis.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
mistermann 4y ago
There's been nothing even remotely close to a ban, and it's highly uncertain the degree to which the new rules are even enforced. As with most things, Canadians are expected to Trust The Experts....and trust them they do!