NY Times - In Vancouver, British Columbia, the price of a single-family home has soared so fast over the last few years that even many well-paid local workers have been pushed out of the city.
In Miami and New York, new luxury apartments are rising rapidly, often sold to anonymous buyers, sight unseen. In Melbourne and London, housing shortages have worsened even as recently purchased homes appear to be sitting vacant.
In each of these cities there are at least some indications that what is troubling the housing market can be traced elsewhere — to Russian oligarchs, Brazilian bank accounts, Chinese businessmen. It’s possible that foreign money isn’t just driving up prices for penthouses; it may also be distorting the market, to the detriment of lifelong residents.
But the true extent of the phenomenon is maddeningly hard to measure. So are its broader economic effects. Local governments have barely attempted to track the cash influx. And each of these global cities has become attractive to investors partly because housing in them is scarce, making claims of insufficient supply and excessive demand all the more difficult to untangle.
1 comment:
Not so much different than what happens in areas of the U.S.
Big city sprawl out into surrounding farming communities.
Or better yet, in Northern Wisconsin there are summer homes built by people that live in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago areas which drive up the land values (and taxes).
Talk about xenophobia... although most hostility here seems to be aimed at impolite people from Illinois. Hence, name calling with terms like FIB, Flatlander, etc.
Of course, Republicans are defined as already owning a home 'up north', and Democrats as those who haven't been able to afford one... yet.
Foreigners in this article seem to have this whole "Capitalism" thing figured out.
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