>

Reddit (as well as Canadians and Americans) have been scapegoating Chinese people for years for driving up home prices, as some kind of boogeyman buying up all the housing in their country, when the reality is that they buy a tiny portion. 
You can probably figure out why they're targeting Chinese people while ignoring all the other races of people buying homes.
"As of 1 January, the ban prohibits people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents from buying residential properties, and imposes a C$10,000 fine on those who breach it."
I wonder if it's a one-time fee cause that's not as bad as it sounds? >

What about foreign citizens just forming a Canadian corporation that buys/sells real estate? Seems like an easy work around. >

It’s actually easier than that. Canadian real estate agents have people in Canada that will sign on as the “buyer” for these foreign investors. >

Source? That's the first I've heard of this and it sounds like blatant fraud to me >

I see it all the time in California:


I got scammed on a real estate deal by two young Chinese people who made peanuts (on paper) but were somehow buying millions in real estate. I didn't figure out the scam until they'd cost me about $20,000.


I once lived in a rental in California that was owned by someone living in Taiwan who'd never even seen the place. They were collecting real estate the way that some people collect baseball cards.


One time I was looking at open houses in CA, and kept seeing the same little old Chinese lady in a minivan making cash offers at half the houses we looked at that day. It's like she was making offers on everything. Obvious Straw Buyer. >

Second the question of how they cost you anything at all. Let alone 20k. They stole money from your account? You should go after them if they did that. >

I knew someone would ask :)
How I got scammed by a Chinese straw buyer:
You can generally buy homes for about 3% less in the winter, and they cost about 3% more in the summer. Due to this, I always sell in the summer and buy in the winter. I've bought and sold a ton of houses.
So, one summer, I put a house up for sale. I get a number of offers, and I selected one from a buyer who lived out of state. They were Chinese. They said that they were "really excited to live in the house and raise their family."
So, from the get go, they presented it as if they intended to live in the house I was selling them.
After I accepted their offer, they spent FIVE FUCKING MONTHS filibustering and nickel and diming me. Just really ridiculous shit; one of their complaints was that "there wasn't enough parking on the street."
AS IF I CONTROL HOW MUCH PARKING ON THE STREET THERE IS
After a few months of this nonsense, it was abundantly clear what the scam was:


they made dozens, maybe even hundreds of offers on homes


then they dragged their feet and made a dozen excuse for why they couldn't close the deal


at the same time, they kept trying to negotiate the price down AFTER THEY'D AGREED TO A PRICE IN WRITING


Just incredibly scammy and predatory behavior. In hindsight, I should have told them to fuck off the first time they pulled these stunts. But they were convincing actors, and at first they had me believing that their excuses were legitimate.
Things went NUCLEAR when my real estate did some probing, and learned that they were doing this to numerous people. It wasn't just me. They were just making dozens or hundreds of offers, and then trying to break the back of the people selling the homes, so they could get the property for cheap.
Really slimy "buyers." 
I put "buyers" in quotes, because based on the number of people that they were screwing over, they were certainly a "conduit" for money coming from somewhere else. Your average 25yo doesn't have millions to invest in real estate all up and down the west coast.
When all the dust settled, I wound up stuck with a home that was unoccupied for about six months. So I had to deal with paying the mortgage AND paying the rent at my new home, which was no fun. I also had to burn up 100% of my vacation from my day job that year, flying out of state to do gardening and upkeep on the vacant home. On top of that, when I relisted the house, to find a new buyer, the first question out of everyone's mouth was "why has this home been so hard to sell?" And, naturally, I couldn't tell the truth because I might get myself sued. >

This sounds really strange. Wasn't there an expiry clause on the mutual agreement contract? If they failed to make good faith effort to move toward closing, re-list the house and go under contract with another buyer. >


Wasn't there an expiry clause on the mutual agreement contract?

Yep. But they were good actors and exploited my good nature to convince me that they were "struggling."
Things didn't go nuclear until my real estate agent pulled the curtain back and found that they were running this scam on multiple people, all at the same time. They're probably still doing it to this day. >

Excuse me for saying so but not having an expiry clause is simply foolish regardless of how well-intentioned you think the buyers were. I'd put that on you.
I've never bought a house and went under contract where the contract did not have an expiration clause. That's just asking for legal exploitation.
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I would never work with that real estate agent again. >

This is a prime example of the government doing something that is popular but has no significant impact to improve anyone’s situation just to get political brownie points. Foreign home buyers only control 2-6% of the housing market.
Meanwhile, up to 92% of new homes in Canada are being purchased by investors. The government is doing literally nothing to stop this, which is clearly the cause of the housing price crisis right now. These investors, with their deep pockets, are outbidding Canadians, driving up prices across the entire country.