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Submitted by Senator Mike Lee WASHINGTON, DC—With an excess of supply stalling a recovery in the U.S. housing market, U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Mike Lee (R-UT) announced today that they will offer a bipartisan proposal to boost demand for homes by luring foreign investors to purchase residences and live in the U.S. The concept is part of a broad immigration package aimed at boosting foreign travel and investment in the United States.
supkis did a piece on this and i certainly agree with this part:
First, news about the sinking US. Some rich Senators (virtually all of them are multimillionaires) want to bail out well to do homeowners who can’t find US citizens with enough money to buy overinflated houses. So, the market has to be opened up to people who do have money, namely, Asians who are richer and richer thanks to the US free trade schemes. Also, rich oil upperclass people can now send family members here, too: Bill would encourage foreigners to buy U.S. homes – latimes.com
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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.
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The plan could be a boon to California, which has become a popular real estate market for foreigners, particularly those from China.
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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.
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When the economy was booming, the government let in a tsunami of illegal aliens in order to stop inflation, that is, to bring down the wages paid for labor here. Now, they are not needed so they are being roughly round up and shipped back home again. The illegal aliens also took on many mortgages which led a great deal towards the sudden collapse as they dropped these and moved back into the underground economy. (let me add here that they were DELIBERATELY given mortgages that they were in NO WAY QUALIFIED for, on purpose)
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So, someone foreign with money has to buy our upper-tier housing. This bill won’t let in people who will buy houses in Detroit. The value of middle to upperclass housing will be maintained artificially by giving home buyers seeking to come here, the automatic right to move to the head of the line, ahead of other seekers of citizenship. And it will buoy up the value of houses being desperately sold by overstretched American citizens. (actually, i think it artificially props up the value of the high end homes, just as cash for clunkers was designed to artificially prop up the value of cars by DESTROYING the good used cars-how was that good for any poor or middle class american????? of course, it wasn't-and they even had the nerve to put in a provision to buy FOREIGN cars with american taxpayer money!!!!)
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Eventually, we will sell off everything. This is what happens when a country is at the top of the economic heap but very, very deep in debt. We have two solutions: sell off everything to foreigners with money and…looting
who can deny that this is a big mess, concocted by our own government and wall street and CONTINUING NOW? can't everyone see that OUR wealth has been transferred by OUR OWN REPRESENTATIVES?
If I were elected to any office in the legislature or the head dude, I'd propose an amendment to the Constitution, that only an American or naturalized, legal immigrant, could own property, or own a business in the USA.
Sounds like a good plan. You help the housing market and you'd bring people into the country who are likely both successful and have money to spend, which would also help the economy.
it certainly doesn't sound like a good plan to me.
it keeps housing ARTIFICIALLY propped up, subjugates us to foreign interests, and forces americans to pay more in taxes in an artificially inflated housing market.
housing HAS to fall to its natural level, or we are going to just have wave after wave of foreclosures for americans, and the country will eventually be owned by foreigners who can charge what they want in rent -or we continue to have the distorted system that we have now where some people pay rent/mortgages and some do not. that is certainly not fair for those who are still paying or for those who have paid their homes off!
if the jackasses in congress had ANY intelligence, they would consider leasing opportunities (like other countries do) to bring in investment and AMERICAN jobs (by only employing americans, which, of course, you couldn't do if everything was owned by foreigners), but still RETAIN OWNERSHIP.
foreigners could still make money but the jobs would be created and kept here, as would the infrastructure, and you don't have to sell your country out to do so.
what mexico did:
The law declares that the Mexican nation has original ownership to all land and water in Mexico, as well as minerals, salts, ore deposits, natural gas and oil; but that such ownership may be assigned to individuals.
The Mexican Constitution prohibits direct ownership of real estate by foreigners in what has come to be known as the "restricted zone." The restricted zone encompasses all land located within 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) of any Mexican border, and within 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) of any Mexican coastline. However, in order to permit foreign investment in these areas, the Mexican government created the "fideicomiso," (FEE-DAY-E-CO-ME-SO) which is, roughly translated, a real estate trust. Essentially, this type of trust is similar to trusts set up in the United States, but a Mexican bank must be designated as the trustee and, as such, has title to the property and is the owner of record.
you can have investment without giving your country away. my guess is that some representatives or their friends are trying to unload some high end property and need a little help to do so.
What's the problem? The whole purpose of calls to lower the corporate tax rate is to encourage foreign investment here--just what do you think that means? Foreign companies and individuals investing in businesses and property here helps our economy. I'm all for it if it helps the housing market recover. They're not offering these people citizenship--it's a residence visa. All it means is that they can stay here year round rather than the six months allowed on a tourist's visa--if they worked here or went to school full time, they could stay year round anyway. Most western countries require foreigners to put up a significant financial guarantee to gain a residence visa, to ensure that you won't be a drain on their system. This is exactly the same thing.
Sell off assets to people that have money to buy them.
We ARE that broke.
Welcome to how Europe and the rest of the world felt when it used to be American's flashing their money and buying expensive vacation homes there. The problem is that Europe is in terrible shape right now too...
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