Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/13/spain-proposes-100-tax-on-homes-bought-by-non-eu-residents

by vinni2 • 2 years ago

162 261 2 years ago

theguardian.com

bborud2• 2 years ago

Would it work or would it just make things worse?

krupan• 2 years ago

It will make things worse

ilya_m• 2 years ago

Easy! It won't work and it would make things worse.

bborud2• 2 years ago

I was hoping for someone to share a bit of insight on why they think so.

(I too suspect it will not achieve the desired outcome, but I had hoped someone could shed some light on the particular conditions in Spain rather some default answer)

affinepplan3• 2 years ago

so is there any actual evidence that foreign home ownership is causing meaningful housing price inflation in Spain? or is this just uninformed pandering like it is in the US

stavros2• 2 years ago

What's causing it in the US?

rvnx• 2 years ago

In Canada potentially Chinese immigrants in Vancouver/Toronto, in the US it's an over-generous monetary policy (through low interest rates, especially during COVID)

bee_rider2• 2 years ago

Too much regulation or greedy landlords depending on your political persuasion.

affinepplan3• 2 years ago

NIMBYism making it extremely difficult and expensive to build supply as is needed.

in 1946 the US had a population of 141M and built 700k housing units

in 2024 the US had a population of 336M and built 90k housing units

Passport4-Lurk• 2 years ago

It’s always supply. It’s fair to criticize foreign ownership/hedge funds purchasing homes, but the overwhelming reason is that we are not building enough.

thfuran• 2 years ago

Decades of public support for treating housing as an investment shaping zoning and other related policies, the relative profitability of constructing budget vs luxury housing, and more recently, inflationary monetary policy,

qball3• 2 years ago

New development was made illegal in the places people want to live.

It's that simple.

Now, you may agree with the given reasons for making that development illegal (and/or very expensive), or you may not, but that is the undeniable end result of those policies. We made that bed, now we lay in it; we could theoretically un-make that bed overnight, but there's serious money (and political power) riding on making sure this problem never goes away.

seanmcdirmid2• 2 years ago

A housing bust in 2008 washed a lot of capital and talent out of the house construction industry, and the current boom is hard to supply with construction capacity even when there is land to build on. And also, even if the land exists, there is already a SFH on it that needs to be torn down, so we are densifying at a slower rate than we need to. Couple that with an even increasing focus of good job opportunities into a few hot metros, the whole US housing market becomes one hot mess.

dataviz1000• 2 years ago

I wonder if it has something to do with advance economies growing at 1%-2% a year while the least developed countries are growing at 4% - 5%?

This would cause the demand for building materials to skyrocket as billions of people can enter the market to purchase lumber, steel, and energy who 10 years ago couldn't.

iforgot2218• 2 years ago

Same reason gold increases in $ value just by existing or people passively invest in S&P500. New money is created and it has to settle somewhere. There's plenty of cheap land or land that barely moves in value, but the desirable spots in cities are limited, so that's a natural place to invest.

Retric6• 2 years ago

Meaningful is a weasel word here. Even 0.1% price increase which would be impossible to measure directly still adds up across the entire housing sector.

But, equally important is simply the number of natives prevented from buying the home they want because someone is getting a vacation property.

egwor2• 2 years ago

I think I read 20,000,000 need housing and this will impact 20,000 per year so broadly the numbers are inline.

kasey_junk4• 2 years ago

But you also need to measure the dampening impact on home building.

If builders would have built N units knowing they could easily sell some % them to foreign buyers but now they can’t, then you might lose the whole supply. And all the knock on effects for contractors, suppliers, etc

renewiltord3• 2 years ago

Yeah, you have 0.1% of a house, sure. But do that across a thousand houses and you have 100% of the houses. It's that simple.

yeknoda• 2 years ago

Depending on the market, market prices can be decided by a very small number of transactions that set things. Probably true for houses in Spain (limited supply) and foreign wealthy buyers (very high potential demand)

rolothrow2• 2 years ago

Totally anecdotal, but I live in the largest city in Spain, and even in my residential area (as opposed to the touristy spots) every week I can see ads for "we buy your house, paid upfront over market value, Chinese investors".

Posters in walls, flyers in windshields and so on.

CommanderData3• 2 years ago

This is excellent, assets like property don't grow on trees and needs to be protected from foreign investors.

Absolutely need something like this in the UK.

JumpCrisscross13• 2 years ago

every week I can see ads for "we buy your house, paid upfront over market value, Chinese investors"

It specifically calls out that they're Chinese? Are you sure this isn't a political stunt?

nsklab2• 2 years ago

For the last years we’ve had 500K immigrants coming every year. That’s what’s causing inflation.

hjgjhyuhy• 2 years ago

Printing massive amounts of money is what caused the inflation.

scotty79• 2 years ago

Do you need specific evidence that additional demand causes price increase when the supply is pretty much fixed?

matt-p6• 2 years ago

Of course, it's just more demand, like immigration, aging population and so on. Of course those are a much more difficult target..

iforgot2218• 2 years ago

Even if it does, I don't see why it really matters. Cost of living has nothing to do with the value of the land you live on. Maybe the real problem is foreign investors leave the property vacant?

jopicornell• 2 years ago

In my hometown, Palma, in Mallorca, I live in a street where 50% of houses are owned by foreign people or investors/airbnb. The neighborhood is not 50% but not that low.

The problem? Prices skyrocketed, like a 10x in 10 years (for big houses, small houses 4x). I hear more english/german/sweedish than spanish (or catalan) in my dog walks.

Besides economic implications (a lot for local people trying to find places to live), there are cultural/social implications. The neighborhood used to be a community, where people were open to help and share. Now this is changing and evolving into an individualist neighborhood.

Our oficial language is being minoritized even more. This doesn't seem like the neighborhood we used to live on.

Not everything is economy. The intangible heritage is something we should take care more.

kjsingh• 2 years ago

what about corporate ownership?

WalterBright6• 2 years ago

In order to justify a corporate purchase, there needs to be a return on investment. A vacant property is not that.

jfghi• 2 years ago

I disagree. The large corporations in total own hundreds of thousands of homes in their portfolios. The value of renting or selling can be boosted significantly by introducing scarcity on the margins between supply and demand. A vacancy of a small percentage of the portfolio can ensure the rest of the portfolio is worth much more.

To elaborate a little further, it’s not necessarily the act of having it sit empty but rather keeping the pricing high regardless of whether the property stays empty. That becoming industry standard becomes a recipe for prices spiraling out of control, at least for a bit of time.

inetknght2• 2 years ago

what about corporate ownership?

Homes, and real estate in general, should not be an investment vehicle. Screw those corporations.

nozzlegear2• 2 years ago

Just tax land value.

jedberg3• 2 years ago

How do you calculate the unimproved land value?

This is an interesting question with the fires in LA right now. Is the land still as valuable as it was before the house burned down, minus the rebuild cost of the house? Or is the value intrinsically tied to the community that was there but no longer is? Or is the value actually higher now that a developer can come in and remake an entire neighborhood?

fastball• 2 years ago

I definitely recommend reading Lars Doucet's treatment[1] of this subject. You can skip to section 5 if you want the most direct answer to your question, but the whole thing is worth reading.

The short answer is that there are many ways you can assess unimproved land value. The "Multiple Regression Analysis" method I think is the most relevant here: you'll see from the linked article a table that includes all sorts of factors related to both aspects you mention: factors of neighborhood/community (some positive, some negative) and factors of potential (some positive, some negative). e.g. there is even a factor of "Proximity to natural disaster areas", which would definitely decrease the land value after this LA-area disaster.

In this particular case, I would expect that Land Values would go down after the fires, as there are many more factors related to positive neighborhood features (which no longer exist if the neighborhood has burned down) than there are factors related to "development potential". Though of course it also matters how you weight these things.

Anyway read the article, my summary does not do the subject justice!

[1] https://www.gameofrent.com/content/can-land-be-accurately-as...

behnamoh• 2 years ago

Interesting game theory situation:

- if land value depends on the community that was there, then owners would all have incentive to rebuild their burnt down houses to regain the values.

- but owners probably realize most owners will sell their property as soon as things are back to normal. that would reduce the value of surrounding houses.

- so owners will rebuild as fast as possible, probably cutting lots of corners, just so they won't left behind to sell.

- some people start selling their houses but the late comers realize it's not worth it for them to sell it because the value has dropped a lot. so they stay.

- the new owners move in to the area and house prices go back up.

adverbly2• 2 years ago

In situations like this, my assumption would be that it doesn't really get calculated so much as it gets measured... to be kind to victims, you might want to assume it drops for tax purposes temporarily, and then raise the valuation once bids go through and you get some post-fire data points.

x-complexity• 2 years ago

How do you calculate the unimproved land value?

The first thought that immediately came up for me:

- Take the average property value per sqft for each given property

- Multiply it by a fixed percentage

- Take the (your favorite mean / average type) value per sqft and apply that to the empty lot

If that undeveloped land and its surrounding developed areas are controlled by one entity: Recursively expand outwards to factor in the value of the surrounding areas as well.

Compared to the methods outlined by fastball's link [0] later in the article, it's much more weighted towards public valuations & has fewer subjective areas, with the cost being that it can be gamed if certain properties were sold cheaply (but then that's an auditing issue).

No solution would be a silver bullet, but it's 70% silver, and that's good enough to start from.

[0] https://www.gameofrent.com/content/can-land-be-accurately-as...

This is an interesting question with the fires in LA right now. Is the land still as valuable as it was before the house burned down, minus the rebuild cost of the house? Or is the value intrinsically tied to the community that was there but no longer is?

IMO, the land value is lowered because of the destruction of the properties built on top of it, on top of the rebuilding costs that will come later.

Or is the value actually higher now that a developer can come in and remake an entire neighborhood?

Not until (a) the land is actually developed, or (b) the market reflects that decision back onto the land values for that area.

adverbly2• 2 years ago

This is they way. This would fix so many things.

inetknght2• 2 years ago

Just tax land value.

Another great way to kick out the undesirables^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpoor!

nozzlegear2• 2 years ago

That's valid criticism, it can certainly lead to that if implemented poorly. However, two of the goals of taxing land value are A) increasing the supply of housing and B) discouraging speculative land hoarding — one of the major drivers behind unaffordable housing.

user_of_the_wek• 2 years ago

- Let the owner pick a land value freely

- Calculate land tax based on that

- If someone offers the owner more than the value they picked, they have to sell

:-P

golergka2• 2 years ago

I want to make sure I understand this correctly. If you bought a house a few years ago, Spain will effectively rob you of it now? Or will it only apply to new purchases, so you'll have to pay x2 market value if you want to buy one?

If it's the former, than even flaunting such a plan is a complete catastrophe for any foreign investment in Spain from now on. But if it's the latter, it'll just bring to life a whole industry of middle-men, which will use their EU residency to buy property in their name to be used by other people.

Both ways, it's yet another attempt to force a market to do something that will lead to either disastrous, or just bad results.

egwor2• 2 years ago

believe it is new purchases

gruez10• 2 years ago

If it's the former, than even flaunting such a plan is a complete catastrophe for any foreign investment in Spain from now on.

There's investments that don't involve real estate. Moreover, property isn't a productive asset, so discouraging investment into that is arguably a good thing. Investing money into a factory means you get more stuff produced. Investing money into property just... sits there.

WalterBright6• 2 years ago

property isn't a productive asset

It is when you rent it out.

PaulDavisThe1st2• 2 years ago

a complete catastrophe for any foreign investment in Spain from now on

No doubt because

a) all foreign investment always comes with individuals from the investment source purchasing homes in the investment target country

b) Germany is no longer foreign when it comes to Spain, so any money invested by Germany would not count as "foreign investment"

Am I right?

alexanderchr• 2 years ago

What make you think it would apply retroactively? Taxes rarely do, I can’t even think of a single example (but would be happy to learn about one).

Putting someone else’s name on the deed is a very bad idea for several reasons. I really can’t imagine anyone doing that, unless it’s a trusted family member or something like that.

jandrewrogers• 2 years ago

California is notorious for implementing retroactive taxes, having done it multiple times. I can't think of an example from another jurisdiction though.

jterrys• 2 years ago

Housing prices in spain and portugal are booming to astronomical degrees mainly because of china. This bill is specifically targeted to stop that without explicitly calling out china. Middlemen cost money, making it more expensive to buy houses, which serves the purpose to restrict the market outside of non-eu residents.

What's going to realistically happen is foreign investors will claim quick citizenship in a relatively poor and more corrupt eu member state and then buy the property.

somewhereoutth2• 2 years ago

Another (better?) target should be homes used for short term let - i.e AirBnB etc.

Homes have such extreme valuations because of the underlying cash flow (or 'rent' in its most abstract sense). Without tourists willing to pay many multiples of what they'd pay at home for accommodation, that cash flow wouldn't be there.

icegreentea2• 2 years ago

The article says they are also targeting tourist rentals.

rbjorklin• 2 years ago

This will undoubtedly make some brexiteers very unhappy.

ipnon• 2 years ago

It's quite funny because Great Britain is the reason why the Spanish won their war of independence.

cmsj• 2 years ago

Good. I love this for them. Source: totally not still bitter Remainer.

spacedcowboy• 2 years ago

Seconded. Bastards.

floxy2• 2 years ago

Is that because:

A.) There is significant overlap between Brexiteers and those with enough extra wealth to afford vacation / second homes in Spain. Is there any way to quantify this? I would have thought that those with a nationalistic bent wouldn't be keen to own homes in foreign lands. Plus I had the impression that the Remainers were more towards the urban, wealthy, citizen-of-the-world types who would at first blush seem more likely to buy houses elsewhere.

B.) The Brexiteers were hoping that the Remainers would all move away, so they don't have to deal with them anymore?

C.) The Brexiteers want to colonize Spain?

D.) Brexiteers wish they would have thought of the idea punitive taxes on foreigners first?

E.) Other?

johannes1234321• 2 years ago

There is a notable amount of "expats" who permanently moved to Spain under freedom of movement, then voted for Brexit and then were angry that Spain/EU started to treat them as foreigners.

How many hundred that are I don't know, but they made "fun" news stories during those times.

archsurface2• 2 years ago

Do you have figures?

mhandley• 2 years ago

Anything to stop a non-EU resident owning an EU company that owns a Spanish home?

matt-p6• 2 years ago

Of course not! Such an insane plan.

rapatel0• 2 years ago

One of the more effective (but potentially over reaching) parts of EU law is that the governments usually give enforcement powers with discretion on how to enforce them. On the one hand it’s annoying because there are no clear rules for how to do business at times. On the other hand, it does typically do a better job of articulating the “spirit of the law” and not allowing people to hack around the letter of the law.

I’m pretty sure if using a hack became a trend, then they would start suing people in a few years down the road and extract all the money.

V__• 2 years ago

It's not trivial to set up a business as a non-eu citizien. As far as I know every EU business has to have an eu citizen representative. Additionally, a company owned property can't just be used privately.

gruez10• 2 years ago

As far as I know every EU business has to have an eu citizen representative

You can't hire a nominee director?

Additionally, a company owned property can't just be used privately.

They can't "rent" it back to the owner?

matt-p6• 2 years ago

I'm British and it's very easy to setup EU companies, many UK companies have HAD to due to Brexit.

matt-p6• 2 years ago

As far as I know every EU business has to have an eu citizen representative.

Not at all true, infact it's becoming the exception rather than the rule, look at; Estonia, Ireland, Netherlands, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Hungary.

Even in Germany I think it's beginning to become possible.

Additionally, a company owned property can't just be used privately.

Um yes, the company rents it out?

Beijinger• 2 years ago

"a company owned property can't just be used privately."

Why not?

zxspectrum19822• 2 years ago

It's illegal according to European Union law so this is just one more lie by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

https://www.vozpopuli.com/economia/el-castigo-fiscal-a-los-c...

JumpCrisscross13• 2 years ago

It's illegal according to European Union law

Is this firmly established or contended?

Article 63 of the Treaty of Lisbon [1] bans "all restrictions on the movement of capital between Member States and between Member States and third countries" [2].

To define "movement of capital," we must look to Annex I to Council Directive 88/361/EEC of 24 June 1988 [3]. It says "purchases of buildings and land and the construction of buildings by private persons for gain or personal use," including explicitly "investments in real estate on national territory by non-residents" counts. Looks clear cut!

That said, there appears to be a long history of challenging what constitutes a "restriction," because EU.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Functioning_of_t...

[2] https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/kslreuropeanlawblog/?tag=article-63-...

[3] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

iforgot2218• 2 years ago

Or non-EU resident investing in an EU real estate fund?

WeylandYutani• 2 years ago

Average house price in Netherlands is 500k. If you offload your house to the next sucker you can still outbid most people when you move to Spain as a pensionado.

nayuki• 2 years ago

That's essentially an export tariff.

Terr_2• 2 years ago

Perhaps if they were mobile homes. :p

The comparison breaks down a little further with cases where the foreign owners just rent the home out.

gruez10• 2 years ago

Perhaps if they were mobile homes. :p

Tourism counts as an "export" even though everything stays within the country's borders.

The comparison breaks down a little further with cases where the foreign owners just rent the home out.

So... an investment tax?

switch007• 2 years ago

Ah yes the playbook to distract from immigration, and lack of house building, ie the policies designed to increase house prices

throaway25014• 2 years ago

Canada should follow suit

switchbak• 2 years ago

BC has already implemented actions to limit foreign ownership without them actively living in the residence. Probably more to be done though, but one needs to be careful about unintended consequences.

throaway25014• 2 years ago

like house prices falling to affordable levels?

duxup• 2 years ago

without them actively living in the residence

This seems like it would be a bit of a difficult thing to police as far as foreigners goes.

swat535• 2 years ago

They did but they left so many loopholes that was it was basically pointless. Foreigners simply started making an incorporation or using any of the quick "PR" schemes to be able to purchase a property.

Many people will even pool money from the multiple families if need be to purchase residence and then renting it to Canadian citizens for profit or putting on AirBnb.

desireco42• 2 years ago

This is equivalent from seizing the properties... I can't imagine this or something similar working well for Spain at all. It will just kill inflow of capital and they will alienate anyone willing to work with them.

Advantage of Spain is that it has good climate, prices are not high and it is lawful country. As soon as you trip this last one, it is the same like some 3rd world country.

louison113• 2 years ago

Blaming foreigners for housing prices is misdirected. The real culprit is slow bureaucracy & zoning laws making it impossibly slow to get a permit to build anything in both Spain and Portugal. Both of these countries for example have so many abandoned houses needing to be renovated, and so many foreigners coming in with money to do it - but they can never do it because you can't get a permit in literally forever... I don't know about Spain, but another problem in PT is the building companies too, are unreliable, and typically don't deliver houses in less than 3-5 years if you decide to build new. Increase the supply, and the prices will go down.

WorkerBee284743• 2 years ago

No, that argument assumes you can only blame 1 thing at a time.

Even if the bureaucracy is the worst offender, every foreigner buying a house still results in 1 less house for Spaniards.

Sure, fix bureaucracy, but don't pretend foreign purchases have zero effect.

AuthorizedCust• 2 years ago

If you’re in oversupply, as the parent comment suggested, then is the effect of additional buyers meaningful?

louison113• 2 years ago

I'm not saying it has zero effect. I'm saying it's a misdirected effort that would cause them more harm than good. Spain isn't exactly in the fittest economic position. It needs to attract foreigners to cultivate its growth - hence their Beckham law and other benefits for foreigners. You can deter people from coming and see the country stagnate/go down, or you can actually match the demand and foreign dynamism, and use that as an opportunity for the whole place to grow and modernize.

gruez10• 2 years ago

So would you say it's fair game to blame "migrants" for crimes? After all, you can't steal something if you're not in a country, so letting someone into a country strictly increases the crime rate. Even if migrants commit crimes at a lower rate than the local population, unless it's exactly zero, it'll still increase the crime rate.

edit: downvoters, I'm not actually endorsing blaming migrants. It's only used as an example.

ETH_start2• 2 years ago

Every foreigner buying a house is supplying capital for one additional house to be built, and some portion of those additional houses will be unoccupied by the foreigner most of the year and available on the rental market for locals.

Even if it's just short term rentals, that means more affordable vacations and temporary housing for the domestic population.

JumpCrisscross13• 2 years ago

every foreigner buying a house still results in 1 less house for Spaniards

In a very limited scope, sure. What that foreign capital also does is lower risk and thus capital costs for development and improvement. (In the event of a limited crisis, for lenders as well.) Whether the net effect goes one way or another is more complicated than what you describe.

Put another way, if foreigners could only buy unbuilt units, would you still say they're resulting in fewer houses for Spaniards? Do the countries shunned by foreign investors have affordable housing?

ptero• 2 years ago

Foreigner purchase effects are complex.

While a unit sold does immediately reduce the supply by 1 unit, new demand and foreign funds can also stimulate more building and, especially important, can prevent areas falling into disrepair and becoming ghost towns. It really depends on the specific area and situation. My 2c.

klipt2• 2 years ago

You could also argue that every Spaniard moving from the countryside to the cities takes away houses from Spaniards born in the cities.

Seems like an argument for internal visas like China's household registration system to prevent excessive migration to the cities.

The countryside is mostly emptying out so no need to prevent people moving or buying there.

surgical_fire• 2 years ago

Even if the bureaucracy is the worst offender, every foreigner buying a house still results in 1 less house for Spaniards.

Just to be pedantic, it's not about foreigners buying property, it is about non-resident buying properties.

A foreigner that actually resides in Spain would not be taxed, if I understand correctly.

I don't think that limiting property ownership to residents is a bad thing. I do think, however, that it will not have that much impact in the properties the average people actually need and want.

creer• 2 years ago

every foreigner buying a house still results in 1 less house for Spaniards

Absolutely not. For example my impression is that foreign demand has been great for the construction industry, both small and large, both in Spain and Portugal. Paying lots of people directly and still more indirectly. The presence of all these buildings that needed renovation (or demolition) shows that the population previously could not afford to use them. Dumping money in the economy causes some inflation, yes, but it also pays many people and allows still more to enter the field.

Gibbon1• 2 years ago

I have various thoughts. The rough one is that investors driving up the cost of housing increases the countries labor costs. Which harms it's competitiveness. Reduces workers standard of living. Which also causes headaches for political leaders.

Foreign investors rub salt in the wound by moving their gains outside the country. And the real risk that they will flee when there is any sort of downturn making it worse.

My opinion giving those guys the middle finger isn't unreasonable.

alecco2• 2 years ago

But the foreign investors are doing it because the housing market has an artificial supply shortage. They are buying into a cornered market.

Of course, full deregulation is not a fix as seen with the condos built in ridiculous locations back in the sub-prime mania.

It would be good to have a reasonable plan. Sadly the plans for making livable neighborhoods was hijacked by the "15 minute city" WEF-style politicians. The Netherlands had some very interesting projects that went pretty well.

vivekd2• 2 years ago

I donno if it entirely wrong to blame foreigners. If you have a bunch of silicon valley digital nomads flying to Spain and buing and selling houses to each other I can see how that could easily leave locals out of the housing market. That seems like something that government should control against if locals can't affording housing.

I imagine that if a bunch of rich people decided to treat Spanish homes like stocks (holding and flipping) it would be pretty easy to get high prices and bubbles. Doesn't it follow from suppy and demand?

Increase the supply, and the prices will go down.

what's wrong with tackling both demand and supply. Why shouldn't spain do both - build more homes to tackle supply while also curbing foreign home ownership to tackle infalted demand

honestSysAdmin• 2 years ago

Bloated/unnecessary bureaucracy is essential to the bribe collection process.

motorest5• 2 years ago

Both of these countries for example have so many abandoned houses needing to be renovated, and so many foreigners coming in with money to do it - but they can never do it because you can't get a permit in literally forever...

Are these hypothetical houses located in the places these hypothetical foreigners want to live or invest? Because getting a small apartment in Barcelona is a small feat, and Soria is not exactly an alternative.

rednafi3• 2 years ago

The issue is that countries expect foreigners to bring in money, earn a lot, and pay taxes at the 90th percentile, but they’re (the locals) reluctant to share resources in return. A 100% taxation model turns it into a one-way street. Sure, if you don’t need foreign investment, you can afford to do that. But let’s be real—welcoming foreigners isn’t an act of charity.

Governments usually do it because foreigners are often more productive, pay higher taxes, or fill jobs that locals don’t want. Turning it into a one-sided deal has consequences. Immigration policies are funny; every western country treats them like a magical cure-all, only to later blame immigration for any and every problem.

ralsnop• 2 years ago

If India had 25% white EU members similar to Sweden having 25% migration background members (mostly from Africa or the Middle East), perhaps Indians would get a tiny bit protectionist.

The accusation that locals are reluctant to share resources is offensive at this point. There is no space and people can barely afford to pay rents.

Meanwhile there are "golden visas" to Portugal or Cyprus where rich Chinese can gain entry to the EU and buy up everything. For a token "investment" like buying stocks to the tune of EUR 1,000,000. They do not exactly build a semiconductor fab.

Again the myth that "foreigners are more productive". Where does that come from? West Germany did just fine before 1990, everything deteriorated since then.

JambalayaJimbo3• 2 years ago

What does whiteness have to do with anything?? Indians are protectionist, with regards to immigration from poorer countries like Bangladesh.

rednafi3• 2 years ago

I completely understand the need for protectionism. That said, Sweden's immigration policy ranks among the worst in Western countries. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any pushback; rather, my point is that these policies are exploitative on both ends. Why bring in refugees in the first place? And if you do, why bring them in en masse?

The US handles a much larger number of migrants each year and consistently attracts the cream of the crop. I'm not saying the US doesn’t have issues with migrants, but during my time living there, I didn’t find the situation as severe as in Germany, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, or Italy.

Europe's immigration policy is broken. Many immigrants end up draining the social welfare system, overcrowding service providers, and causing religious tensions. But let’s be honest: everyone knows which group is primarily responsible. It’s extremely difficult for that group to enter the US. At the same time, it’s much easier—though still not trivial—for skilled migrants to move there. In Germany, the situation is the opposite: it’s trivial to enter as a charity case but much harder as a skilled migrant.

If you can afford to reject immigration, you're free to do so. America can’t, and they’re profiting from it. But why adopt such a self-sabotaging approach, bringing in the worst of the crop and then blaming them for the country’s woes? That’s the part I can’t understand.

whatever1• 2 years ago

Enforce taxes for non occupancy instead. Like €1000 per day that a property is not occupied.

Currently the excepted cash flow of buying some property and locking it empty is positive. We need to make it VERY negative.

saguntum• 2 years ago

The English language reporting on this reform proposal is not comprehensive.

Here's an article on it by one of the national papers of record, El País: https://elpais.com/espana/2025-01-13/sanchez-anuncia-una-int...

Some interesting tidbits from the article:

- Some local governments, which are run by a party opposed to the governing national party, oppose the existing laws regarding price regulation and refuse to enforce price caps. This is possible because Spain has a lot of power devolved to local governments. The proposal attempts to side-step local governments by giving property owners a 100% income tax rebate if they abide by national price regulations for their properties. It essentially incentivizes individuals to enforce what regional governments are supposed to be implementing.

- Spain's public housing inventory is low compared to other European counterparts - Spain's at 2.5%, France at 14%, Netherlands at 34%.

- There are some comparisons to the construction rates during the 2000s housing bubble and how the inventory has shifted between single and multi family dwellings.

- The measures include plans to promote prefabricated/modular housing as it is much cheaper to produce at scale.

Sidestepping uncooperative local governments is an interesting technique given their devolved system of government. I would also be curious to see how prefab/modular housing measures develop. If they are combining some old school "price cap / limit foreign investment" strategy with a pro manufactured housing YIMBYism, that would be kind of unique.

From my quick scan of the article, the 100% tax on non-EU residents isn't even reported on. The reform is much more comprehensive and, in my mind, likely to get passed in some form even if the 100% tax gets cut from the final bill.

There are also some less than factual opinion statements like this dropped in the Guardian's article:

Given his government’s longstanding struggles to pass legislation, one analyst suggested to the Financial Times that the government’s aim was to deter foreign property investors by creating “uncertainty and noise” with a proposal that has slim chances of becoming law.

IMO this is under-selling the current president's political survivability, regardless of what you think of him or his policies. He is currently in power because he convinced a separatist Catalonian party whose leader is exiled from the country to join his coalition.

I'd rather not get into it on HN, but read about his tenure for yourself. The Guardian's article is not a good enough summary of what is being proposed and is not giving thorough enough context.

alecco2• 2 years ago

one of the national papers of record, El País

El País has basically become the socialist government's PR department.

icar• 2 years ago

Houses should not be an investment, but only used for what they are: a place to live. That's directly opposed to why someone not local would buy them.

This fall short, it should be straight up forbidden, also for EU residents (who are a big issue as well, looking at you German and French people that buy houses, leave them empty all year but 1 month and/or don't even learn the language and traditions of that place)

omnimus• 2 years ago

I think EU is ok as many people actually live somewhere else thanks to EU laws.

What should get hard taxed is owning multiple homes. There are people with 100s flats not even under a company but an individual. And companies that do own homes as business should be stevards of properties with max profit margins - it can be good business but not unhinged money printer it is in becoming everywhere.

SergeAx• 2 years ago

So, companies should not be allowed to build new multi-flat houses? Or should they be forced to sell them the moment the building is complete?

philjw• 2 years ago

Good - even as EU citizen from a "wealthier" country who also considered buying an apartment in Spain I felt put off by the sheer amount of non-EU citizens taking the easy and cheap route out, coming over to sunny, walkable and high quality of life Spain with good public health system and showing their excitement about the "low prices" - which aren't even that low by EU means, at least for locals working local jobs. A friend advised me last March to "buy an apartment before the flood / US election" - but no, I'm not buying into the hype. Fix your political issues overseas or be welcome by paying a fair premium adjusted to the higher income and earn respect by becoming part of the community / learning some Spanish. There needs to be some entry barrier / incentive / application process. In general I can understand why the Spaniards resist. Of course debatable whether it should be all non-EU or simply a list of significantly wealthier countries / countries with high wealth gap and oligarch investors that pay the higher entrance fee.

Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

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