Bill would encourage foreigners to buy U.S. homes

This could be of interest to some Canadians...

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles—
American consumers and the federal government haven't been able to bail out the sinking U.S. real estate market. Now wealthy Chinese, Canadians and other foreign buyers could get their chance.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-visas-home-buyers-20111021,0,6715779.story

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles—
American consumers and the federal government haven't been able to bail out the sinking U.S. real estate market. Now wealthy Chinese, Canadians and other foreign buyers could get their chance.

Two U.S. senators have introduced a bill that would allow foreigners who spend at least $500,000 on residential property to obtain visas allowing them to live in the United States.

The plan could be a boon to California, which has become a popular real estate market for foreigners, particularly those from China.

Nationwide, residential sales to foreigners and recent immigrants totaled $82 billion in the 12-month period ended March 31, up from $66 billion the previous year, according to the National Assn. of Realtors. California accounted for 12% of those sales, second only to Florida.

"Overall, Los Angeles is the perfect place for investors," said YanYan Zhang, an agent with Rodeo Realty in Beverly Hills, who travels to China several times a year to meet potential clients.

Sandra Miller, a broker at Engel & Volkers in Santa Monica, an international real estate firm that caters to foreign clients, said about 10% of the luxury market now is composed of foreign investors. She estimated that offering them U.S. visas would triple that figure, as well as help sales elsewhere.

"California, Florida, New York, Colorado, Hawaii and Texas — those states will see a huge increase in demand," she said. "The whole Westside would certainly benefit."

The bipartisan proposal, part of a package that also would make it easier for international tourists to visit the U.S., is similar to an existing program that puts foreigners on a fast track to a green card if they invest at least $500,000 in an American business that creates at least 10 jobs.

"Many people want to come and live in the United States," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who introduced the legislation Thursday along with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). "They will be here spending money and paying taxes, and the most important thing is they'll sop up the extra supply of homes we have right now compared to demand, and that's what's dragging our economy down."

The legislation would create a new homeowner visa that would be renewable every three years, but the proposal would not put them on a path to citizenship. To be eligible, a person would have to buy a primary residence of at least $250,000 and spend a total of $500,000 on residential real estate. The other properties could be rented.

The program would come with several restrictions.

The purchase would have to be in cash, with no mortgage or home equity loan allowed. And the property would have to be bought for more than its most recent appraised value, Schumer said.

The buyer would have to live in the home for at least 180 days each year, which would require paying U.S. income taxes on any foreign earnings. Buyers would no longer be eligible for the temporary visa if the property were sold.

The buyer would be able to bring a spouse and minor children to live in the U.S. but would need to apply for a work visa to hold a job. Neither the buyer nor dependents would be eligible to receive Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security benefits.

"The bill does not limit people from being productive," Schumer said. "It simply prevents them from coming here and taking jobs that otherwise would go to Americans."

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett and others have advocated boosting the U.S. economy by attracting foreign investment.

The Visa Improvements to Stimulate International Tourism to the United States of America Act, or VISIT-USA Act, aims to do that by also making several other changes to visa policies.

Among them are allowing Chinese tourists to receive a five-year visa that permits multiple visits. They now must apply for a new visa every year. Canadians would be allowed to stay in the U.S. for more than 180 days without having to obtain a visa.

Schumer and Lee have lined up support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Travel Assn. and the American Hotel & Lodging Assn. Schumer said he was working to get the backing of the Obama administration, which received the bill's details Thursday.

"For too long, we have created barriers, and too many hoops and hurdles, which act to deter visitors from other countries coming to the United States to spend their money and create jobs," said Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue. "This is a loss we can ill afford in today's economy."

Robert Toll, executive chairman of Toll Brothers Inc., a Pennsylvania builder of luxury homes, joined Schumer on a conference call with reporters to back the foreign home-buyer proposal. He said it was no different from tax breaks designed to attract businesses.

Lee described it as a free-market way to boost demand in the real estate market after "big-government programs have failed to work."

Saw that story yesterday and my first reaction was: they cannot be bothered to address any type of immigration reform but we sure can bend the rules for a few that have the money!

It is smart policy to attract money and investment. Someone has to pay for all the poor and it sure isn't the poor.... heck not even the rich!

CheenaGringo wrote:Saw that story yesterday and my first reaction was: they cannot be bothered to address any type of immigration reform but we sure can bend the rules for a few that have the money!

I have to agree with you. Immigration reform!!! Not while O'Bama is in office. He needs the Latino vote. He needs every vote.

[quote="Intercasa"]This could be of interest to some Canadians...
American consumers and the federal government haven't been able to bail out the sinking U.S. real estate market. Now wealthy Chinese, Canadians and other foreign buyers could get their chance.
Two U.S. senators have introduced a bill that would allow foreigners who spend at least $500,000 on residential property to obtain visas allowing them to live in the United States.
The plan could be a boon to California, which has become a popular real estate market for foreigners, particularly those from China.
Nationwide, residential sales to foreigners and recent immigrants totaled $82 billion in the 12-month period ended March 31, up from $66 billion the previous year, according to the National Assn. of Realtors. California accounted for 12% of those sales, second only to Florida.
"Overall, Los Angeles is the perfect place for investors," said YanYan Zhang, an agent with Rodeo Realty in Beverly Hills, who travels to China several times a year to meet potential clients.Sandra Miller, a broker at Engel & Volkers in Santa Monica, an international real estate firm that caters to foreign clients, said about 10% of the luxury market now is composed of foreign investors. She estimated that offering them U.S. visas would triple that figure, as well as help sales elsewhere.
"California, Florida, New York, Colorado, Hawaii and Texas — those states will see a huge increase in demand," she said. "The whole Westside would certainly benefit.".............

Some would say, how pragmatic. Dawg says how cynical.

This is a disgusting example of how the plutocrats have taken over the United States supported by their uninformed Tea Party troglodyte supporters.

This is a gimmick being pushed by real estate brokers and their ilk to try to make their sleazy pursuits of filthy lucre even easier. Dawg was a commercial banker in Metro San Francisco, Monterey Bay and the Silicon and Napa Valleys for many years, all booming real estate markets in the late 20th Century and can assure the reader that back in the 70s, 80s and 90s when I was banking there and dealing only with wealthy industrialists and professionals including (shudder) lawyers and real estate brokers, that there was never,ever, even then, any shortage of foreign opportunists buying into the Caifornia or Hawaii up-scale real estate markets. Especially Chinese and other Asian buyers. Does the reader think that these people had problems getting visas? I never saw one cower when anticipating an inquiry from the immigration goons who harass poor Latinos who are in the U.S. to actually add value for Americans by breaking their backs in the vineyards of California, the fruit orchards of Washington State or the tomato fields of Alabama. This is one more example of what has gone wrong with American values when U.S. lawmakers don´t have the intelligence and guts to push for "bracero" type temporary seasonal worker´s visas but push instead to grease the market for the wealthy who have million dollar plus homes they can´t move on the market and their sycophant real estate brokers and legal shysters. The U.S. has lost its moral compass.

Does everyone reading this news article know what this Miller person means when she says, "The whole Westside would benefit...."? As a resident of "The Westside" for a while, Dawg can tell you that means places such as Beverly Hills and Malibu and Santa Monica and let´s just throw in far flung haunts of the super rich such as La Jolla and Santa Barbara and Atherton and Sausalito for spice. These are folks we can all sympathize with. To hell with the factory worker in Stockton or Pomona who actually produces something tangible facing foreclosure because he/she was laid off. Let´s just hope we can get that paper speculator from Atherton back from that Meditterranean cruise in time to sign the papers so a wealthy Chinese industrialist can pick up that mansion in Atherton for a song on his way back to Asia from Bentonville after selling cheap crap made by slave labor in rural Viet Nam to WalMart.

Otherwise, I have no opinion.

Just another example of how the US has the best government... that money can buy.

Intercasa wrote:It is smart policy to attract money and investment. Someone has to pay for all the poor and it sure isn't the poor.... heck not even the rich!

Total bullsh*t.

While I´m at it. Let me tell you that for many years I was a commercial banker in the San Francisco Bay Area specializing in lending to small business which in my bank´s culture during about 15 of those years (Barclays Bank of California) consisted primarily of industrial clients with sales of between $5,000,000 and $500,000,000 a year. For a time I was also a banker to major corporate borrowers, mostly publicly owned enterprises for another major California bank but that is another matter. When I hear the Republican morons talking about breaking the backs of "small business" with equitable tax reform, I am nearly physically ill. I had many, many well-to-do "small business" clients who reported personal imcome of in excess of $250,000 a year and ALL were tax cheaters. Every single one of them. Not only that, the more money they made the more dishonest they were and, while they rarely lied to me because as a commercial lender with some power in the bank, I could cut off the cash flow spigot at the drop of a hat, there were and are countless ways to cheat the IRS because of the unbelievably complex tax codes. Almost every business person with whom I dealt over the years spent more time trying to figure out how to minimize reported net profits than they did making their "zithers" and that is one of the great disgraces of the U.S. tax code as all the time spent trying to cheat the tax collector was time they could have devoted to improving those "zithers" and their marketing techniques. The average American and not even one Tea Part advocate (unless he/she is one of those clever small business owners) has any idea how they are being screwed by the arcane tax code that turns otherwise honest small business owners into petty thieves and renders the U.S. tax code a partner in crime.

And, people from the U.S. think Mexico is corrupt. Not that it isn´t but, as we know , people who live in glass houses should not throw stones or something like that.

I doubt that Canadians would want to spend more than 180 days out of the country. Health insurance cuts off about that point, and unlike the U.S. tax codes, there's no way around that one.

By the way; since foreigners from most countries can already invest in U.S. real estate and businesses and acquire investor´s visas, what is this proposed new law really all about? Hidden tax breaks? Beware of congresspersons bearing gifts.

Also, why $500,000? In the San Francisco Bay Area that ain´t no estate. Maybe the market these real estate shysters are really thinking about consists of the multi-million dollar properties where they can rake in obscene brokerage fees but they lowered the minimum to a midddle-class amount to pull the wool over the eyes of a gullible public.

Dawg is suspicious.

While i am personally disgusted by this "end around" to totally ignore the need to address full blown immigration reform and give priority to a certain class of people, we used to have a business contact based in Monterrey who spent two years trying to arrange a business visa to move to the US. His particular motivation was to get his wife and very young daughter out of Mexico for their safety. Naturally he ran up against the usual roadblocks and delays. Almost one year ago, this particular gentleman was caught in a crossfire between the military and the narcos in the City of Monterrey and killed. Monday morning quarterbacking says that he might be alive today if a program such as this had been in place? I am sure that there are many more Mexicans in the same position. Heck, I would even guess that there are a fair number of cartel members who wouldn't mind paying cash for a US home and get a visa too!

cheenagringo - I hear that cartel members already live in the US, including in Albuquerque, Phoenix, Scottsdale, ect. What's to prevent them from buying there?

[quote="raqueteer"]I doubt that Canadians would want to spend more than 180 days out of the country. Health insurance cuts off about that point, and unlike the U.S. tax codes, there's no way around that one.[/quote]

raqueteer:

I don´t think this is about residing in the U.S. but ramping up speculation. Most of the foreign speculators I used to deal with were from Asia and they had no intention of living in the U.S. full time, they were
out to speculate on real estate and make a quick buck contributing nothing to the U.S. economy but lining the pockets of other speculators and, by doing so, they contributed to the real estate bubble that sucked so many down the financial drain in the last few years.

Of course, Indignant Dawg never had a problem lending big bucks to foreign or domestic real estate speculators. After, all, I had my loan quotas to meet and Dawg also was often treated to some fine lunches by grateful clients in San Francisco´s financial district. Banker´s scruples.

John:
If you are trying to bait me into denying such, you must think I am seriously naive! Sure there are cartel recruits who own homes in places you mentioned and many more. I wasn't referring to the NOB born or bred type but rather the ones who happen to still be SOB and could certainly launder some money by getting "legal" NOB. All in the interest of lining the pockets of one segment of society.

Chinagringo

It is unfortunate that your friend did not find an easy way to move North. I have a tapatia friend who owns a house in San Antonio and so do many of her relatives. They are not US Citizens have plenty of money and seem to have no problem living wherever they chose . It seems that there are plenty of loopholes for the ones with money already.
Brigitte

There have been plenty of homes owned NOB by "old money families" and the routine established many years ago. This particular guy didn't come from a family with much money but managed to get an architectural degree and for a number of years was apparently a respected architect in the Monterrey area. He was attempting to make the move the right way and in such a manner that would allow him to legally earn an income to support his family. I don't know all of the details but he was putting out a fair amount of money to visa and immigration attorneys NOB to accomplish his goal. Not only was this a tragedy for his wife and young daughter but I always felt that he would be an asset to the Mexico/US trade.

I was reading an article today where two New Mexico Senators were trying to get the free travel zone for Mexicans with Border Crossing Cards or Laser Visas from 25 miles to 75 miles. Ironically, Arizona with their ludicrous immigration laws got their free travel zone extended to 75 miles so that the City of Tucson could benefit from shoppers from Mexico. Money talks and BS walks per usual!

The $500,000 offer work for Vancouver, BC and now it's "HongCouver." Why not "Chin Angeles?" Or perhaps...... you fill in the blank. BTW, I can't wait to learn what John "hears." Oh how we'll miss the insight of his Mexican PT.

Intercasa wrote:This could be of interest to some Canadians...


"Many people want to come and live in the United States," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who introduced the legislation Thursday along with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).


The legislation would create a new homeowner visa that would be renewable every three years, but the proposal would not put them on a path to citizenship. To be eligible, a person would have to buy a primary residence of at least $250,000 and spend a total of $500,000 on residential real estate. The other properties could be rented.

The program would come with several restrictions.

The purchase would have to be in cash, with no mortgage or home equity loan allowed. And the property would have to be bought for more than its most recent appraised value, Schumer said.

The buyer would have to live in the home for at least 180 days each year, which would require paying U.S. income taxes on any foreign earnings. Buyers would no longer be eligible for the temporary visa if the property were sold.


Canadians would be allowed to stay in the U.S. for more than 180 days without having to obtain a visa.


"For too long, we have created barriers, and too many hoops and hurdles, which act to deter visitors from other countries coming to the United States to spend their money and create jobs," said Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue. "This is a loss we can ill afford in today's economy."

I just pulled out the juicy parts. What a load of crap!

First of all, I don't know anyone who would actually want to live in the Excited States...actually most Canadians probably would prefer to fly right over it and never touch down.

So, the Canadians would invest $500,000 dollars for the privilege of staying longer than 180 days and then get taxed by the U.S. government for doing so? Get Real!

Created barriers, hoops and hurdles? Oh yeah!...and now they want to pull the wool over your freakin' eyes too.

Got only one answer to this pile of shit....

It's a better deal than they're getting now when buying up real estate in Phoenix, Tempe, Miami, and Naples.

They sure aren't paying those kind of prices...they sure aren't paying cash...they aren't going to be taxed on their world wide income...they aren't going to give up their health insurance...and they only want to be there when it's cold in Canada.

A better deal? Don't think so.

hound dog wrote:[quote="raqueteer"]I doubt that Canadians would want to spend more than 180 days out of the country. Health insurance cuts off about that point, and unlike the U.S. tax codes, there's no way around that one.

raqueteer:

I don´t think this is about residing in the U.S. but ramping up speculation. Most of the foreign speculators I used to deal with were from Asia and they had no intention of living in the U.S. full time, they were
out to speculate on real estate and make a quick buck contributing nothing to the U.S. economy but lining the pockets of other speculators and, by doing so, they contributed to the real estate bubble that sucked so many down the financial drain in the last few years.

Of course, Indignant Dawg never had a problem lending big bucks to foreign or domestic real estate speculators. After, all, I had my loan quotas to meet and Dawg also was often treated to some fine lunches by grateful clients in San Francisco´s financial district. Banker´s scruples.[/quote]


Nail on the head Dawg. Just another attempt to fleece the unsuspecting.

Cheers.

ferret wrote:They sure aren't paying those kind of prices...they sure aren't paying cash...they aren't going to be taxed on their world wide income...they aren't going to give up their health insurance...and they only want to be there when it's cold in Canada.

A better deal? Don't think so.

Bingo ferret. No way and no how is that ever going to happen.

ferret wrote:They sure aren't paying those kind of prices...they sure aren't paying cash...they aren't going to be taxed on their world wide income...they aren't going to give up their health insurance...and they only want to be there when it's cold in Canada.

A better deal? Don't think so.

yes we paid these prices!!!! yes we paid cash!! yes we will be taxed on our world wide income, yes we gave up our health insurance, (paying $500.00 per month) and why after all this would we be here when it's cold in Canada????? because we afford it, CAN you????

canadiangirl wrote:

ferret wrote:They sure aren't paying those kind of prices...they sure aren't paying cash...they aren't going to be taxed on their world wide income...they aren't going to give up their health insurance...and they only want to be there when it's cold in Canada.

A better deal? Don't think so.

yes we paid these prices!!!! yes we paid cash!! yes we will be taxed on our world wide income, yes we gave up our health insurance, (paying $500.00 per month) and why after all this would we be here when it's cold in Canada????? because we afford it, CAN you????

Great insight and to the point, thank you.

Actually, Canadian Girl, we can afford it but we're smarter than that.

Agree with ferret, we can afford it but choose not to. In fact we pay extra to fly through Mexico City to Canada so we don't have to land there.