I don’t think it is a scape goat. For example, many people from China are not trusting Chinese Yen, they often purchase property purely to hold value and won’t even rent it to others, because it would cause wear and tear. So it is basically a wasted unoccupied unit.
Americans do this with property too. If we only regulated foreigners from doing it, that would allow american investors the opportunity to do it more beduase they have less investors to compete with.
If you allow foreigners (keep in mind that those who do this, but only are very rich in their countries, but also are very rich compared to you or me) to purchase property now you not only have demand created by locals but you are adding foreign demand. This all drives the price up.
Even if Americans would do the same thing the prices would be still lower, because now they are out priced.
How much property is owned by foreigners paying taxes while not collecting rent? That sounds nuts compared to just holding the dollars they’d use to buy the house in an offshore bank.
I don’t think it is a scape goat. For example, many people from China are not trusting Chinese Yen, they often purchase property purely to hold value and won’t even rent it to others, because it would cause wear and tear. So it is basically a wasted unoccupied unit.
As for your suggestions I totally agree.
Americans do this with property too. If we only regulated foreigners from doing it, that would allow american investors the opportunity to do it more beduase they have less investors to compete with.
If you allow foreigners (keep in mind that those who do this, but only are very rich in their countries, but also are very rich compared to you or me) to purchase property now you not only have demand created by locals but you are adding foreign demand. This all drives the price up.
Even if Americans would do the same thing the prices would be still lower, because now they are out priced.
How much property is owned by foreigners paying taxes while not collecting rent? That sounds nuts compared to just holding the dollars they’d use to buy the house in an offshore bank.