@@TravelingwithKristin I can see the dismay if the cash flow from quality properties is being diverted from the local economy BUT I’d be even angrier if it is sitting empty!
@@Kayla11113 Well if family wont work together to purchase there own home then let a business buy it pay tax instead of letting it just run down and become a blight
@@pauobunyon9791 Obviously when rich investors come in and buy up all of the inventory, it drives prices up. To me, a good compromise would be to force foreigners to have to wait 30 days before buying property. Even as I type this, I'm thinking of ways around this idea, but you can't have rich people buying up all of the property in desired locations, or you land up with areas that are just tourist towns and the locals unable to even live in their own country.
As a Portuguese, im very happy our government is ending this clown show. What you do is wrong and if you think that forcing locals out of their houses is right and then there's something wrong with you. Our hosing prices are way more expensive than Spain and I applaud my Iberian brothers for doing that as well. 🇵🇹🤝🇪🇦
@@LU-jo2jz sure but that begs the question - if America is such a horrible poor country then how can people from that country drive up prices? You do realize the average portuguese lives way cheaper then the average American right? People from the US have way less disposable income lol. I would love free healthcare. free college, you guys have the life of reilly. Americans arent the reason real estate is out of control. You need to clamp down on short term rentals but most people living and traveling for work are not going to be looking into these sorts of short term rentals. At the very least drenching people on vacation with super soakers is just absurd and wont solve anything.
@@TravelingwithKristin I think Francisco needs to take a Valium. There are other countries I would rather visit if this is the attitude towards foreigners. Italy isnt perfect but I found the people there( with the exception of the occasional zoomer who hates the US) to be super nice and as I speak the language that also went a long way.
There are just too many people with too much money that local economies get drastically distorted. Take Vale CO. 40 years ago Vale was a sleepy mountain town that locals could live in. The rich moved in, drove up home prices, where now the locals who work in Vale live 30 or 40 miles away and commute to be a maid or bartender. Same is hppening in Montana and all over the world. The digital nomad has recently really distorted the local market because they swoop in with their 6 figure salaries in a 5 figure or less community. Good for the digital nomad but bad for the locals.
This is a HUGE problem in Bar Harbor. They are on an island, so space is extremely limited for building. They need employees, but there isn't enough housing, and what there is is grossly unaffordable for most locals or seasonal employees. Some companies offer housing (shared), but employees who prefer not to share have zero options.
You have the opportunity to work and educate yourself, so you're not a maid or bartender anymore, in the USA....other countries are not like that...look at the average EU salary. Its really low.
This is one of the consequences of the financialization of everything. Finance and investments and banking is such a ridiculous portion of our economy, and many people who work in it can do it from a cell phone anywhere in the world.
@saintpreferred9223 Don't talk to me about opportunities in Montana. I didn't want to be in the service industry and I wasn't born into a family farm or ranch so I joined the military. In the military I was kept at or just above the poverty line. I went to college when I got out and still couldn't get a good job in Montana. In the 80's when I first entered the workforce I struggled to find a service job in Montana when my family member my same age in Simi Valley California could get a different job every day of the week. Now those Californians have bought up all the properties in Montana, at inflated prices raising property taxes on everyone. Fourth generation Montanans were forced to sell family land because they couldn't afford the exploding property taxes. This is what happened in Hawaii and Spain and Portugal and Bar Harbor.
It's their country they can and should do as they want. Being an expat, having analyzed these visa programs many times and reading hundreds of unbiased accounts and i think that it's statistically very unlikely that the smidgen of Gold Visas issued by any country of millions of persons has hardly any effect on home price inflation. I DO acknowledge that such things can happen in concentrated highly desirable 'rich' places, neighborhoods. In the USA the perfect example is Jackson Hole Wyoming and Aspen Colorado. Probably in Spain Barcelona has some effects but not Servilla, Madrid, Granada, and many other markets that don't have many immigrants except from Muslim regions.
Real estate-based Golden Visa never should have been instituted. It was foreseeable that this would be a problem for the locals and it's not even a great way to boost economy. The focus needs to be quality job creation.
Okay, have at it! Go create some jobs! in my day I did it, I started a company and created jobs and worked myself into a horrible life trying to keep my employees in their jobs. LOL. It's a great way to learn a drinking problem.
allowing foreigners to buy propery pushes up the prices which is a form of gentrification. locals are negatively impacted by this. govts must insure that their local citizens are protected when they allow for foreign investment.
I wonder if golden visas aren't a scapegoat for other Government policy problems. I'm not sure but 15,000 golden visas since 2013 in a country with a population of 48 million doesn't seem like it would significantly influence the real estate market.
@@manuelpiot6948 You don't need golden visa to buy a property in Spain. Most likely the real problem is that AirBnB provides good income to the spaniards, so the buy properties to rent them out and many stopped renting them long-term to locals as it's less profitable.
@@s_k12Yes, this is the answer. Same as in the USA. Until countries make this kind of short term renting option illegal, there will continue to be housing shortages. A nation needs to decide who should have houses: people with families, or Airbnb landlords renting to tourists. If the Spaniards want to backlash, they should backlash against Airbnb, not Golden visas.
The way real estate works is that one transaction sets the comparable for an entire neighborhood. This is why you don't need a lot of transactions to dramatically raise prices. Ultimately the government shoukd have tied the golden visa to purchasing new builds or developing new homes ie adding to the inventory rather than taking away supply from locals.
Spain's government is one of the most bureaucratic and corrupt in Europe. The main reason Spain is operational at all is thanks to EU support, which is a shame, because with effective and honest government, Spain could become an economic powerhouse. The locals know this, of course, as evidenced by a poll of Spanish college graduates: 74% said their goal is not to start a business or work in the private sector, but to work in government. They see it as a "sure thing" and the path to financial freedom. 15K golden visas is a drop in a an ocean of corruption and inefficiency.
Public sector jobs are pretty attractive in other places that you would be far less likely to label as bureaucratic and corrupt, not through any familiarity with those places, I would imagine. And why shouldn't people seek out stable employment? Every other aspect of most nations' economies is being deregulated to "gig" status, which is just a hipster euphemism for insecure and exploitative employment. While golden visas might not be solely responsible for the property price bubble, they seem to involve foreign capital moving in and introducing another driver of that price inflation. It might be wonderful to be someone with a valuable real-estate asset decamping to another country to dabble in property and the lifestyle, presumably renting out that existing asset if keeping one's options open to go "home" one day, but this doesn't all happen without a social cost, either at "home" or in the golden visa venue. Another thing that people seem to forget is that Spain and Portugal were dictatorships until about forty-odd years ago. A lot of EU support was needed to restore and upgrade those countries and their infrastructure, and there are undoubtedly many cultural factors that still linger with regard to commerce and politics. People seem to overestimate the resilience of their own democracies, unbelievably given events in recent times.
No estoy nada de acuerdo con tu punto de vista. Es cierto que aun hay corrupción (sobre todo donde gobierna algun partido de derechas) y que la burocracia puede ser un problema para los expatriados, pero para los ciudadanos en genral no lo es, puedes hacer casi todos los tramites online hoy en dia. Que muchos españoles prefieran un empleo público que trabajar en una empresa privada se debe a la estabilidad que ofrece el sector publico, frente a la inestabilidad en el sector privado, sobre todo en epocas de crisis ( imagina la diferencia durante la pandemia)., ademas en algunos sectores, cono en la enseñanza, los sueldos suelen ser mas altos en centros públicos. Nada que ver con que preferirnos no trabajar y esteriotipos de ese estilo. Y por ultimo, España, como todos los paises de la UE estan mejor ahora qie fuera de la UE, pregúntaselo a UK.. Cuando España entró en la UE tuvo que sacrificar y cerrar una parte importante de su industria y dejar de producir tanto como lo estaba haciendo, ejemplos, industria del acero, produccion agrícola y ganadera, etc, etc ,etc...
The governments of Spain, Portugal and elsewhere offering visas based on real-estate investment should have anticipated the impact on local housing costs when foreigners, especially from capital flight prone nations like China, Russia, Iran etc would pay much higher prices for real estate in these locals to get permanent residency rights. The damage is already done. I would suggest they impose taxation on all foreigners holding golden visas who do not reside in their properties at least 180 calendar days and do not allow foreigners to rent out their properties except to nationals at reduced rents (no more than 40% of prevailing rents per square meter) with the rent differential used a a tax credit.
Inflation is sky high for all products and services-- especially in real estate. In the last 8 years, the property values in many booming neighborhoods of Guadalajara for example have more than doubled.
The problem with that, unfortunately, is that in many countries many of those properties will go uninhabited and decline, because their economies are not as robust and secure. I wholly understand the problem of homes being monopolized by foreign owners--especially hedge funds, private equity groups, and high net worth individuals purchasing them as investments--but the solution must also address related problems, such as the creation of empty, rotting houses. Instead, citizens and permanent residence should be given priority, and houses that remain empty for more than two years should be auctioned, even to foreigners, so long as those foreigners get long-term visas and live in those homes as a primary residence, spend their money in the local economy, pay taxes, etc. Perhaps residential real estate ownership of Airbnbs and other short-term rental properties should be limited to citizens, and those should be highly regulated as well, to limit their impact on the single family residence market as well.
@@izzytoons They could discourage legal entities from purchasing properties by increasing taxes and offering tax discounts to local citizens. But also discourage citizens from keeping old proprties by having hefty taxes on n-th (not primary to live in) property.
@@sashkad9246 Good ideas. Also, limits on leaving properties empty (i.e., incent owners to determine a rent fee or home sale price that the market will accept, or face escalating penalties)? Question: can the Portuguese deduct mortgage interest from taxes the way we do in the U.S.? If so, perhaps progressively reducing, then eliminating this advantage, then adding an actual tax, for leaving a property empty? And, at some point, forfeiting the home to public auction to someone who pledges to occupy the home, at the risk of losing the home in turn.?
And getting all the dirty and bloody money of the world while having the HQs of many international humanitarian institutions. Switzerland is the epitomy of hipocrisy. Neutrality or convenience?
@@nebojsaborkovich9196I love cold! I’m researching daily Norway Sweden etc they’re colder places yet those are the most expensive to live in and harder to get in? Not everyone likes hot and I can’t figure out how my lower middle class butt can get accepted other than finding an old dude to marry ha I’m literally NOT joking! 😅
Kristin please do more on say 1200 or less SS income places- that can let us still do DIGITAL ONLINE WORK...combo...as I think many retires age still may want to work ONLINE or out of country.
I understand why they’re doing it. These countries have had struggling economies for a long time now, and these policies only make it more difficult for their own citizens to afford housing in decent areas, especially if the foreigners buying are not really contributing to improve the local economies at all.
Spoiler alert: onerous government bureaucracy, heavy progressive taxes and heavy-handed regulations which crush entrepreneurship and individual initiative keep the poor in countries like Spain and Portugal perpetually poor. As for the often-maligned foreigners with resources, they are among the minority who can actually afford to travel, buy luxury goods services, improve real estate and- most importantly- start businesses to employ Spanish citizens.
@@richstewart9904 Germany is Socialist and some countries in the North are Left-Wing too!!! You know that the Portuguese government is right-wing, don't you? Since 1974, Portugal has been governed simultaneously by the Center-Left and Center-Right, normally when the 8 years of government end, the political color always changes. I can no longer say the same about the Far-Right dictatorship (which you like so much, your color) that ruled Portugal for 48 years, which closed the country to the world, delayed it, persecuted and tortured people and left them to die in the wars in Africa at the whim of the dictator. Yes, that type of dictators of Conservatives, radical/fanatical Christians, Nationalists, whatever you are used to!!! One more thing, it was thanks to these policies that you hate so much (which are not Socialist, they are just Humanitarian) that you don't pay for an ambulance, public transport for all, school for everyone, public health where even a homeless person can be treated, 25 days of paid vacation, at least one holiday per month and paid, in December at Christmas they receive double, two salaries, and I could be here all day but I don't want!!! All the best.
@@richstewart9904 when you look at the upvotes for others and downvotes for you- be happy that you are part of the minority. There is a majority that thinks money is dirty and one should avoid it.
@@richstewart9904 I understand what you’re saying. My main point was about these policies increasing home prices making it more difficult for their own citizens to afford homes in decent areas. Some foreigners do live in these homes full-time, sure, and in that case, spend money consistently and contribute to the local economies. But many of them use the homes as vacation homes, either STR’s or personal vacation homes, meaning they don’t spend a lot of time there to contribute to the local economies in a meaningful way. I shouldn’t have used the verbiage “at all”, it’s too categoric, and should have used “in a meaningful way”. People that purchase and use homes in this way, while they may contribute some to the economy, it likely does not offset the increase in home prices that makes home affordability more difficult for their citizens.
@TravelingwithKristin...when you're a former Green Beret combat diver instructor, and Kristin Wilson has you watching Eat Pray Love, rethinking your life in your jam jams lol.
Exactly. And after tourists stay away for some time, they'll be crying about their economy being bad when there's no tourist money coming in. Fk 'em. I'll go somewhere else.
@@sunflowerfields4409 It seems that you do not understand the concept that those who complain are the majority of people whose source of income is not related to tourism or those for whom the income from tourism does not compensate for the loss of quality of life due to the shortage of accommodation, the increase in prices for basic needs, etc. Most of those who benefit are the large companies that control the market for apartments and houses, the rest of the population sees their quality of life diminished. Like in the Canary Islands where they have even created a law to be able to declare any place as a tourist area and if you have a house there, they force you to sell it or give it away so that tourist companies can rent it out. In other words, if you have a house you cannot live in it and if you decide to rent it out, you cannot do it directly, but rather a company dedicated to tourism. Is that fair?
I live in a tourist town and lived in another one in CO. The destruction that tourists do to the nature areas is horrific but everyone believes without their money they wouldn't be able to survive. The airb&bs have driven out the locals because they can't afford the raise in rentals or there are no rentals. We have lived in hotels several times while looking for a new place to rent. There is no shortage of housing in USA, if everyone with an airb&b would rent long term or rent their second homes. In my block there are 3 AB&Bs and second homes sitting vacant.
We need to ban owning second homes unless they live there 6 months out of the year. Tourists are a huge problem everywhere but that is because people are just the worst species. Where humans go, everything beautiful disappears.
The housing prices skyrocketing is real. The reasons though are not just the golden Visas . Locals being mad with foreigners is somewhat misleading. It may happen every now and then, but for the most part, locals are just upset because the average joe cant afford rent. The facts may have a lot more to do with specific spikes in demand and lack of new housing options. In anycase the golden visa removal feels a more political choice than a long term well thought idea.
It's not the purchase of individual houses/condos/townhouses/apartments, etc. by those who are commited to living in those homes, contributing to the local economy, paying taxes, etc. It's the corporations and high net worth individuals scarfing them, monopolizing and manipulating the houses as assets for corporate gain. That kills the inventory and drives up prices for everyone. That has to be shut down. Give them five years to divest. Airbnbs must also be reduced and heavily regulated. It should be limited to mom and pop owners with one or two properties, and the overall number of them in each market should be controlled to suit the housing conditions in those areas.
Sorry to hear that Portugal and Spain are cancelling heir Golden Visa programs. I was planning to pony up the $$$ and pursue one of these.. I didn't realize they were so controversial, feeling a bit naive at the moment. Thanks for discussing other options.
I don't blame them. Any time I've traveled to a country where my dollar is worth more than the local currency, I recognize that it's a good and bad thing for the country. Good for those the money is actually reaching. Bad for your average person just trying to get by. Obviously if rich investors are buying up property, that's going to reduce inventory and make what's left more expensive.
But 15,000 GVs are not limited to 15,000 properties. They are taking many, many more out of the market, and converting most of them into rental properties, mostly short term rentals. THAT does distort the market. Diminished supply creates scarcity and drives up prices. Period. It's happening everywhere, and its' driven by hedge funds, private equity groups, and high net worth individuals. Regulate them and short-term rentals in general, and the supply will return, and prices will drop. Construction of new homes must no doubt be part of the solution; the problem is that almost none of the housing that will be built will be affordable to the average income earner, even when a couple is involved. The economy is completely rigged. I don't mean that some people don't deserve much more. I just don't think they deserve it all.
@@izzytoons ban the daemon Germans because it is their vacation homes taking up all the real estate. Every one of my neighbors is a German! They are the real prroblem
Considering the effects here in Portugal it is time to cancel this BS. It is not just housing, but the rise in construction cost and renovation costs that have an effect on those living here.
We used to call wealthy foreigners ”currency pigs”! It is a problem when countries with a weak currency get used by countries with strong currencys. An example that is not well known is between Austria and Switzerland, the Austrians don’t like when Swiss people go there. I think the problem is universal and has existed since the 1960ies and it just gets excerbated by the wave of nationalism that is sweeping over the world now. As an example Thailand that has always been very welcoming earlier has seen a lot of violence against foreigners and it just goes to prove the thesis.
They NEED to write the rules in such a way to EMPHASIZE the benefits for locals/gov't and enrollees WHILE not allowing affordable housing to b GOBBLED UP by speculators! Plus yes I heard that Russians fleeing issues there are behind a lot of it-didn't realize other things lurking as well.
I'm not sure speculators are the problem. The problem is caused by governments making a property purchase a condition of residence. If people could get a residence permit by only purchasing government bonds, then the bond market would heat up instead of real estate.
Back then it was not possible to see the effects due to the rise of different elements like digital nomads and airbnb. Attracting good capital with a better knowledge of risks is what they should do. And build more properties not only for high end buyers
I guess I want to know the break between the head lines about tourism, that they want tourism to stop versus getting a golden visa. If you want a visa to a country you should live in that country versus buying up cheap housing and renting it out for income, to me that is now what should be allowed in a Golden visa. Locals should be able to afford housing but the issue is global because you can't afford housing in the US either. These large corporations should not be allowed to buy thousands of houses and drive the price up so regular people can't afford them. How could they not want legal immigration with a residency visa and totally accept thousands of illegal migrants into their country. This world is upside down.
Housing costs are determined by what people can afford. If you sre renting out a place, the cost is determined by what the best renter can pay. If you want to reduce housing costs, then build more housing. More supply will reduce rents since landlords would be competing for tenants.
I live in a small Florida town and tons of people come all summer from Us and International destinations. It’s so over visited we can’t even get to work because of the traffic. Housing has skyrocketed in the area. Locals can’t afford to live here either but it doesn’t give us the right to stop people coming here. What the international people are complaining about happen in the US just as much. How can we tell people where they can go or visit because we need tourism to pay our bills. Would have fought for that law years ago.
Florida really needs some commuter trains that function because with the traffic and building more traffic lanes all the time to accommodate the ever building subdivisions for people that come to Florida.
Hard to have a stable real estate market either prices go down because many people move away or they increase because too many people want to move in or visit.
They blame golden visas but the impact is insignificant. The lack of good planning from these countries is. The housing will get worse there and let´s find out who they will blame then. Iberians/Latins have a tendecy to not be accountable for they're actions, specially in politics.
Not quite sure about the lack of accountability you are referring to. This same problem, with gentrification and exclusion of locals from their own communities is a phenomenon we see in many different places around the world. Take California for instance, where real estate prices have been skyrocketing in such an unbearable manner through the last decades. Actually, a great example why so many Americans (Californians) have been opting for Portugal: similarly great in many aspects but affordable. Let’s not even mention all the other factors that are also (so far) a plus in a country like Portugal, i.e health care, safety, and so forth.
You don't have a clue what you are talking about. Housing prices are based on inventory. If houses are being scarfed up for investment purposes by hedge funds, private equity groups, and high net worth individuals, and most of these are converted to expensive long and short term rentals, of course the market will be distorted. Of course prices will skyrocket. That happens everywhere. Locals are driven out and forced to commute long distances to crappy jobs. Single-family properties (houses, condos, and townhomes) must be heavily regulated to ensure there is adequate supply for middle class homeownership, in large part because that is their primary means of generating the kind wealth they need to supplement their retirement incomes...
Many of the Portuguese are being extremely stressed on their low wages. The drastic increase in housing and food here has thus made it even more challenging for them to live. Another issue is most home loans are not fixed but variable. Some friends have seen their monthly loans skyrocket from 200 Euros to 600 Euros (almost minimum wage). The 'tacho' or nepotism around here has also caused severe political pressure to answer these questions. This past year has been tough as they have also been pressured to cancel the NHR... Kristin is also correct that many of those involved in the increase of housing prices are not American. A significant number of Chinese are purchasing property here and driving up the cost. Some of it is investment, and some of it is them purchasing property for their children to go to school in cities like Coimbra, Braga, etc. Hence, these smaller cities are seeing higher rates of increase than Lisbon and Porto. There is a very strong anti-English-speaking sentiment here. Part of it is the feeling that English speakers are elitist and stealing their culture. The other part is that life is already difficult for them, and we are an easy scapegoat. The Golden Visa might come back, but only when they find a new scapegoat.
Here are the facts: The golden visa represents less than 1% percent of real estate transactions in Spain. Which is about 14,500 transactions since 2013. Yet golden visa investors are the ones to blame for inflation and the Spanish real estate market? Please. The socialist communist prime minister of Spain knows better but he lies. The real reasons why Spain is having these problems are: Rampant illegal immigration, poor economic growth due to high taxes and big government. Decreasing productivity, printing money to waste it on green energy and programs for illegals and the huge bureaucracy that don’t allow real estate developers to build new housing. But they have the nerves to blame investors for their problems. But that’s how they are and they get away with it wit the help of the media. So go where you and your money are treated best.
When things get sketchy for a national government, it is always easy to blame the non-citizens of your country. They aren't entitled to the same constitutional safeguards (whatever those might be) as mere residents and making those residents into "others" to defer (usually justified) dissatisfaction from yourself and your administration is not usually a hard lift. The most successful of politicians are, unfortunately, very good at getting their constituents to "major in the minors" so to speak, and become distracted from the actual causes of the issues they might face.
@@Agg1E91 "When things get sketchy for a national government, it is always easy to blame the non-citizens of your country." This is true. However, this situation must be one of the rare occasions when wealthy, non-citizens are being blamed for something. Usually, the scapegoating targets poor or regular people who cannot really defend themselves and certainly aren't able to lawyer up to challenge any decisions made by the government. As for whether wandering capital is making it harder for people to find housing, I would suggest that it makes a bad situation even worse. Property has become the investment of choice, resulting in excessive, often under-reported price inflation. Predatory rental practices (including short-term letting, especially where housing is scarce) follow from soaring prices because owners have to find more capital for their "investment" and thus more income, but I imagine that greed or a lack of income from traditional investments also play their part. If the property market were appropriately taxed, there would be housing for everyone. I find it amusing that the initiator of this thread rails against "communist" (hint: not communist) policies including those that would keep the planet viable for human civilisation, wanting property developers to be unburdened. That deregulated approach was one of the things that brought about the financial crisis of 2007-2008, as people with lower incomes in Spain were pushed towards mortgages they couldn't afford in a housing market where the rents were already unaffordable for those people. But I'm sure some people want to run that experiment again just to produce the same results. Lots of people suffered, but I'm sure they did rather well out of it.
14,500 visas do not mean just 14,500 properties purchased. Many more are purchased. Along with hedge fund, private equity group, and high net worth individuals purchasing tons of properties, shrinking inventory, and distorting the market (which is absolutely pegged to supply), of course a housing crisis is created. Not just there but everywhere. Housing purchases for investment and long- and short-term rentals MUST be heavily regulated until homeownership regains its position as a standard component of the middle class bargain, and the middle class can once again use it as their major source of wealth creation. The 1% has other vehicles; let them stay there.
I think it is fine to have golden Visas, they just need to up the price and add more restrictions. Let's say a country has a tourist visa of 90 days, well then a golden Visa would have the added stipulation that you would have to remain in the country for 180 days per year to maintain your visa status. This way it shows a commitment to spending money and time in the country.
And maybe limit the amount of homes that can be purchased like this relative to a city’s population. So it’s not a free for all who are rich while pushing out locals.
Well, they need more than. Because higher net worth individuals will just buy up those properties, convert most of them to rental, shrink the housing inventory of single family properties, and drive prices up. Upping the cost of the Golden Visa is something to considering, but limiting and regulating the purchase and use of those homes is also a key factor.
Another correction, the Spanish digital nomad visa IS a path to permanent residency, but only if it’s the 3-year version you can obtain by applying from within Spain. The 1-year version does not count towards PR, but after obtaining it and moving to Spain, you can apply to convert to the 3-year version. I know it’s hard to keep up with all of this but just wanted your viewers to know the scoop!
Those issues can be handled with regulations like Greece is doing. They should keep the programs ...at least is a good way for Govts to generate revenue.
It is starting to look like a lot of countries around the world don’t want long term visitors it will end up costing them financially unless their rents are cheap.
If you've been to Europe in the summer you'd understand why. So many Americans like to trash talk Europe, yet Americans absolutely flood Europe. They can't get enough. And it drives prices up and more and more of the locals are driven out of their cities. They have commute longer and longer distances to get to even low-paying jobs. It's a problem here, too.
@@vgshwk Huh? I didn't say that. I said many Americans trash talk Europe (because they feel superior to Europeans), yet they go to Europe in droves, which I think indicates that, quite to the contrary, European ways of life produce enormously attractive destinations.
It seems that the desire to gain passive income from rental properties is at the heart of many housing issues. In several Italian cities the locals have begun turning their long-term rentals into airBnBs which he had the effect of deteriorating the community as locals can no longer afford to live in the city centers. So local markets which rely on the local population are disappearing. Curb the use of private residences as rentals and you will block or at least slow down the rise in rent and housing prices. But there is always a bit of gentrification which impacts the lowest income levels even when only citizens are influencing it.
Not cancelled yet. In fact it was just a policy announcement. No legislation has been written. There’s still time to get the Spanish golden visa. (And there will be ongoing alternatives to buying property.)
Black Rock and Bill Gates company buying up all the real estate is obviously wrong. You should be able to own one house with very low taxes. A 2nd home with a high tax and a 3rd home with a very very high tax and a 4 th home with taxes so high it is impossible to pay. Same with corporations .
There should be a limit of two single family homes per person (this includes condos and townhouses) until housing contruction catches up with housing needs. Homeownership is the bedrock of middle class wealth creation. It is being eviscerated by 1%er vultures: hedge funds, private equity groups, and high net worth individual. Home ownership and long and short term rentals must be regulated until the middle class regains its primary source of wealth creation.
@@izzytoons More home construction is stopped and delayed by government regulations. You cannot build here or there because of green stuff. If government need more houses they need to get rid of regulations. Socialist governments love more green regulations and also they love high taxes. With fewer homes taxes remain high rents remain high which means higher taxes, So socialist government has no reason to build more houses.
Great video. The days of golden visas in Europe are numbered. I think that digital nomad visas in Europe will also meet the same fate in a few years when they can crunch the numbers and see the effect on rental prices. Wish that wasn't the case, but the writing is on the wall and countries are leaning right nowadays.
Apparently,..YOU didnt hear about the crazy riots in the UK over the past few weeks, due to just this very issue of "protecting their citizens" loL! pLUS! If it was so true that canceling these golden vias programs were some administrative step taken to protect their citizens then WHY did it take over ten years to do it??? The odd inability of some people to either listen or perform basic online research and practice genuine critical thinking explains a whole lot about how the land of the "free" is about to get its first female POTUS,..LoL!
Ask a Spaniard who was forced to abandon his country to find work overseas how well his home country "protects" him. The video talks about real estate; there are scores of empty homes and apartments scattered across Spain whose owners cannot afford to live in because of no jobs, but also cannot afford to sell because of onerous transfer taxes. Finally, they are loathe to rent as an absentee landlord because if a tenant decides not to pay, it can take years and tens of thousands in legal fees to get them out. I think the only "Land of the free" is on the Moon.
Let me simplify it for everyone. Spain thought (erroneously), or was lead to believe, that "development, as the Americans and other Europeans saw it, was the best way for the Southern European countries right after WW2, and so tourism started, at first it was "curious " to see these strange people, with strange languages, and manners of dressing and behaving, come to the beaches and towns in Spain and just got naked, and I mean fully naked, on public beaches - No one ever did that in Spain, so you can imagine men's reactions (not to mention their wives). So from the very beginning, tourism changed the culture in Spain drastically. Then as many thousands of tourists found their way into Spain, and discover its cheap prices, abundant sun, and accommodating locals, the Brits, and Germans started pouring in. Many of them started a trend of hotel rentals that left the locals looking like second class citizens in their own country - many unable to afford a simple hotel room to go to their own beaches. And history moved on but things go worse. Many tourists started buying properties, and opening businesses (for other tourists, of course), thus alienating the local seven more, after a couple of World crisis, house prices went through the roof - International investors discover how to create a feudal capitalist systems and subjugate the locals. Today, even students have a hard time finding a room to rent when they leave home to study at university, let alone buying a house to start a family. The benefits of so many millions of tourist - gone with the wind - most of it syphoned by tour operators, and others. The pristine beaches are no more, instead a wall of hotels, and cheap souvenir and restaurants cover the coast, ITs clear waters are not full of plastic and other human waste. Its fish gone. Car pollution is a mayor cause of death in Spain now. And the sis not the whole story, but if after reading this short summary, you are still wondering why most Spanish people prefer not to have tourists, you haven't understood anything - perhaps you too should come and see for yourself.
@juansantana8448 you have provided a great synopsis of what has happened in your country. Spain did not regulate who could buy properties or how cash flowed into or out of Spain. You have the right to do so as a country. If you look at where people are coming from to use Spain's Golden Visa --mainly China, Russia and Iran---all countries with a wealthy elite and mostly impoverished citizens. One must ask why these wealthy are moving their monies out of their country and not helping their own citizens. Its to hide their monies from their home countries and with that mentality they have no regard for the health and welfare of the countries they "invest" in the Golden Visa and since they have not exhibited any moral compass for their fellow citizens of their home country they will most likely not invest in the citizens of Spain or any other country they are "allowed to buy their way into." So they use their properties purchased under a Golden Visa not to actually reside in so they will do whatever they can to make money from them and pull it into their own personal wealth without contributing to the local economy or the cultural health of where their property is located. If these Golden Visa recipients do not personally live in the purchased properties then they do not buy local services such as gasoline, groceries, vehicles/transportation etc so they can actually drain the local economy, while raising the affordability costs of locals citizens. We have had this happen in the USA as well. As and example: In Hawaii we have had foreigners buy hotels, tour buses, restaurants etc and then sell tours to people in their home country. NONE of these monies ever reached Hawaii to contribute to income taxes, business taxes, sales taxes, etc. These foreign tour companies under reported their sales majorly and also local Hawaii residents as well as other tourists could not access these hotels or tourist services --so they used our airports, roads, municipal services, law enforcement, as well as our natural resources like water, beaches etc while excluding the local citizens and requiring the local citizens to subsidizing their vacation companies with all of these Hawaii resources. It takes a concerted effort of local residents to speak up and to change locals laws and regulations otherwise it will continue. To see how crazy it can absolutely get please look up videos on TH-cam with the fires destroying Lahaina Maui Hawaii (an ancient center of Hawaiian culture and life). When the wealthy come in and want the properties of local citizens who do not want to sell their family homes and businesses. Criminal.
Hello Kristin, always a pleasure to watch your videos. - Well, re your question. I do have some understanding for the locals re golden visas. Indeed their reaction is comparable to their views re Digital Nomads. I have read blogs where Digital Nomads are outrightly not welcomed. - On one side I do understand that locals get negatively impacted by the consequences of the Golden Visa residents on the other side, I have to say: In today's world everybody who wants to improve his market value in order to generate more income has his chance. It's enormous what one can do online. - I am currently working on several online education programs. So what I can do, they can do too. The internet has made the world more competitive. That's a fact. All the whining and complaining is not going to change a hoot about that. - So even when countries are cutting back their Golden Visa programs, this will not really change all that much. Just wait and see.
Overtourism becomes a real problem for Europe Especially the famous Cities like Amsterdam or Barcelona and the countries with good climate. In the summer you hear more English spoken in Spain then Spanish. People have enough. It triggers the inflation and often ruins cultural places.
It looks more like scapegoating of the Golden Visa group. The far bigger issue in many of these countries is the amount of bank lending for housing, In many countries, the cost of construction (materials & labour) is 25% to 33% of the sales price of a property, the rest goes to the developer, who does have some real costs, but the big chunk goes to the land/ site cost, this drives up land values and encourages developers and planners to build higher density housing, reducing the quality of life for the occupants. Reducing bank lending for new builds would cut off the fuel for unaffordable land values, lending for older properties should be reduced too as they have partly worn out / depreciated like a car, if fully renovated, then more could be borrowed but not as much as an entirely new property. Similarly reduce immigration/ population levels so some properties are empty, re-built. The Golden Visas probably impacted the local middle classes / professionals, hence the media catching on and maling an issue of it. Then the AirBnb issue should in theory be a boost to tourism, so who loses out? Well hoteliers, tour operators, etc, another self interested group. I don't know the answer to that question, as regulating a market where the workers are low paid but there is high demand for visitor accommodation. How can families, communities live and function in such circumstances?
I was never interested in living in Europe. So far, my two-week trip to Panama City Panama impressed me. Unfortunately, I have three years until I retire. I plan to go back next year and spend time in Boquete and David. Might take a two-day trip to Colombia.
All a symptom of macro-economics. The betterment of the few at the cost of the many. Amazon is a microcosm of this. I know an extremely competent, bi-lingual Portuguese person who has to work ‘overseas’ because the conglomerates at home pay meagre, barely life-sustaining wages. AirB&B is divisive and should be banned or taxed out of existence.
I remember when many Japanese people were buying houses in the US decades ago. Some politicians and people were complaining about it. But when people looked at the numbers closely most of the foreigners who were buying houses in the US were coming from Great Britain. But of course they didn't stick out so people didn't say anything.
DNV gives you 3 yrs temporary residence and can be renewable. it also count for citizenships specially to those former Spanish colony which only requires 2 yrs
Does EU has rights to impose rules on how nations define their laws on citizenship and residence at all? For USA, as a single country, it's obviously a prerogative of the federal government... AFAIK, EU is imposing these rules on some non-EU countries, like Albania and Macedonia. Why???
These countries have misplaced blame. Real estate prices are skyrocketing across the world as asset managers and hedge funds seek out better +/- more stable returns.
I hope they understand that they can add requirements to the golden visa to help alleviate many of the problems. Locals are not going to solve these issues and need a combination of both to get to where they need to be in the economy. This is applicable to anywhere unless there is a war that levels out everything, we will need to adapt to the always inevitable changes that come as byproducts of growth and progress which is inflation and an imbalance of change within the local economies.
Step 1: Buy a quality farmed identity in your home country. As an American I know there are criminal organizations that will sale you an unused Social Security Number, etc. Step 2: Have that identity apply for a visa, then residency, then citizenship. Step 3: Profit, now you can flee the country if you need to and they'll have the wrong information. Obviously joking those fake socials are tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars and whats worse it's a felony.
How preposterous. 15,000 Golden Visa applications through real estate is moving the Spanish real estate market? Fundamental lack of any form of logic or critical thinking being applied. A purely politically motivated move.
Capital flight might be another reason why countries woud want to cooperate in limiting Golden Visa options. Just as how they cooperate when setting tax rates for new immigrants/residents.
Spain’s wage growth seems to have been pretty stagnant over the past decade. Meanwhile, its home price index is around 148 (it was 100 in 2015). Factor in around 15% inflation since 2021 and it seems clear that the purchasing power of the average Spaniard has deteriorated, making it difficult to afford a home. The country is also short around 325k homes, so low supply is likely also responsible for keeping prices elevated.
Although I favor renting on Airbnb because there isn't an option for anything else when traveling with 2 or more people in a friend or sibling etc group that requires more than one bedroom. I feel guilty everytime because I know it takes away from the local available long term rental market. I've been in short term rentals of 2-3 weeks in one location then another week in another location traveling in Europe that the same host I'm using has upward of 10+ other locations. I know in my own country 🇨🇦 anytime a community throws out Airbnb etc rentals or suites sitting empty obviously only used for speculation or foreign investment the first ones to express issues are the group investors etc that have rented the units long-term specifically to post onto the short term rental market. Specifically in the tight housing market of Toronto Vancouver Kelowna etc. In markets like Spain and Portugal where the wages are so much lower and the residents can't even afford to live in their own towns and cities in decent conditions where they work because of people like me using Airbnb. There needs to be more apartment hotels avail for tourists with 2+bedrooms in both Portugal and Spain. That alone would help the residential market. Just my opinion
Taxes in Spain are outrageous if you're a high-income earner - I hear the taxation rate can go as high as 60%! Best to have an LLC taxed as an S-Corp so you can put yourself on a low payroll before you relocate...
Just got my croatian citizenship by ancestry just in time. This will be the thing to fall. Guaranteed. When I applied it was a 6 month wait now it's 2 years. You'll see countries start shutting this down. Watch
There's not a single person watching this video or posting in the comments who would have ever been a serious candidate for a golden visa anyway. This visa has a catchy name, so people get all worked up over it. Having immigrated to Portugal, I've seen the GV in action. It is a very good thing that Portugal and others have curtailed the GV. These countries are continuously shaping their immigration policies, and the GV has largely served its purpose. If your goal is to live in Portugal, the GV should never have been a serious option anyway. The GV is for wealthy people who want Portuguese residency without having to actually live in Portugal. Perfect for people with some money in notoriously corrupt countries like Russia, China, or Iran, and a good vehicle to hide some of their wealth should they fall out of favor with the government. For people who actually want to immigrate to Portugal and live here, the GV was probably the worst way to do that. Expensive as hell and incredibly slow. Takes years to process vs a few months for a D7 or D8. Golden visas have always been over hyped. Also, the GV barely had a measurable impact on the real estate market in Portugal. The massive growth in short-term rentals (AirBnB) has done far more damage. Measures to rollback the number of AL properties, especially in Lisbon and Porto will have a very positive effect over time. Another huge factor in Portugal that doesn't seem to get much attention was the "expression of interest" immigration path that the Portuguese government recently shut down. The Portuguese government agency in charge of processing visa applications and immigration (AIMA) is swamped with over 400,000 expression of interest applications.These are people already in Portugal, in need of very affordable housing. Now that will put pressure on the housing market. The thing that everyone needs to understand is demographics. Next to climate change, this is the single most important factor driving these decisions. If you fail to understand the demographic situation the entire world faces, then you'll never understand the world you live in. The human population on this planet is nearing its peak. In the next decade or two, the global population will start to drop. You see this already in a great many countries. Once a country's fertility rate falls below 2.1 children per woman, the population starts to decline and age. Portugal and Spain have some of the lowest fertility rates in the EU, at 1.4 and 1.3 respectively. Both countries need an infusion of working age people to do the work and pay into the social security system. Expect their immigration policies to reflect that.
First and foremost, the fact that these governments are looking out for their citizens' concerns is wonderful. Golden visas should from this point, if not discontinued altogether, have extremely stringent regulations and vetting processes. It does not matter where the wealth comes from. The list you gave about a third of the way through regarding national security is a good place to start. Start by having goverment lawmakers come up with new, refined and positive restrictions while taking into considerations the wide and varied concers of their citizens.
Looks like most countries just think of their own citizens first. Also a lot of migrants run away from their own country to find better life elsewhere. Why not stay in one's own country and make it wealthy by hard work and with science and Engineering. Smart people are everywhere and in every country.
To tell you the truth, worrying about these golden visa programs in the EU is sorta like worrying about the decline of room service on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. It is a relatively minor issue that portends much bigger problems. These visa programs were set up to 1) attract the wealthy, 2) bring economic development, and 3) line the pockets of corrupt officials and institutions, in some countries. When such programs are discontinued, its a sure sign that they haven't worked out in the ways the lawmakers intended them to. Lots of reasons for this, but suffice it to say that the prime mover is public discontent. When expats, foreign investors, and even just foreign tourists damage the economy and lifestyle of the locals, watch out! This is nothing new. Foreign dollars...especially in more developed/semi-developed countries often creates inflation in real estate and the cost of living. Result: All those warm, friendly locals that once welcomed you and tolerated you butchering their language are suddenly spraying water at you in cafes and parading with placards reading "Foreigners Go Home!". The laws of the country eventually follow suit. This ISN'T mixing apples and oranges. The economics and social upheaval behind expatriatism, foreign investment, and tourism is inextricably linked. Canada and New Zealand have raised barriers to foreign real estate investment. Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and others ban foreign land ownership, limit land ownership, limit or ban certain types of real estate purchases, or require foreigners to submit to ridiculous and risky purchase terms. The Malaysia MM2H visa was suspended, gutted, then changed in ways that present expats with fewer options and much more risk. There are bad signs in Portugal, as well. Even in the more expat-friendly places like Costa Rica, Panama, and Malta consumer inflation is steadily eroding much of the financial incentive to move there. This is leading people to consider a new tranche of countries that are cheap, but far less developed and often not as appealing. They include crime-ridden places like Colombia and El Salvador or hot, humid places like Cambodia, Indonesia, Paraguay, and Mauritius. Bottom-line: Be prepared to work harder and spend more to find a good overseas retirement destination...and if it starts to become popular, be aware that that popularity is probably making things harder for the locals.
It's sad that countries putting various restrictions on people's freedom of movement.! When we get to see all countries coming together and become one to protect the humanity?? After all..we all belong to this earth then why so much restrictions?? By the way..Happy to see you.!
It's not the countries themselves that want to drop them. It's the large countries and world bodies that put pressure on the countries offering the Golden Visa's to drop them because they want to make it difficult for people to leave their tax jurisdictions.
The biggest problem with the golden visas is that they demand people to have much to very much money and buy houses and invest. This has resulted in only people with much money coming and of course that increases the property prices, risks of corruption and criminals coming. If other people that have enough money to live in that country and be more on par or just above the locals in buying power would be given these long time visas instead, these people would almost only give positives to the country and the area they chose to live in. In my opinion have the demands for getting a golden visa in many of the countries been totally insane. They have been and in many countries still are, an invitation to the rich, very rich and criminals and not ordinary people at all. It is so extremely obvious that they only wanted people with tons of money to come and for some countries it is VERY obvious that some people have been skimming off a lot of that money through corruption. I also don't think it is a coincidence that many of the countries with golden visas also are countries with much to extremely much corruption. In my opinion will the result only be bad when all the foreigners coming to live in the country are much richer than the local population. This is a receipt for a lot of problems in my opinion.
What are your thoughts on Golden Visas? 🤔
Good idea.
I woudn't know, I only have a Silver Visa Card.
@Peter-o5kthe Philippines is no longer Spanish speaking.
I dont like them as they increase cronyism and also inequality at a local level.
@@TravelingwithKristin I can see the dismay if the cash flow from quality properties is being diverted from the local economy BUT I’d be even angrier if it is sitting empty!
Corporations should not be able to buy up housing in any country.
Why not ? Cant just leave it there doing nothing like an unfilled US job
@@pauobunyon9791 Because it keeps families from being able to purchase homes.
@@Kayla11113 Well if family wont work together to purchase there own home then let a business buy it pay tax instead of letting it just run down and become a blight
The ccp is doing it worldwide.
@@pauobunyon9791 Obviously when rich investors come in and buy up all of the inventory, it drives prices up. To me, a good compromise would be to force foreigners to have to wait 30 days before buying property. Even as I type this, I'm thinking of ways around this idea, but you can't have rich people buying up all of the property in desired locations, or you land up with areas that are just tourist towns and the locals unable to even live in their own country.
I think Airbnb and other short term rentals is a far bigger issue than the Golden Visa. People and Hedge Funds buying up multiple properties.
This is true. But not people it is mostly HEDGE FUNDS BUYING UP PROPERTY TO DO AIR BNB
As a Portuguese, im very happy our government is ending this clown show. What you do is wrong and if you think that forcing locals out of their houses is right and then there's something wrong with you. Our hosing prices are way more expensive than Spain and I applaud my Iberian brothers for doing that as well. 🇵🇹🤝🇪🇦
I’m happy you’re happy! ❤️
Locals are always angry about something. Americans are not buying citizenship, they can happily stay in usa for free.
@Peter-o5kthen why Americans emigrate to Portugal now?
@@LU-jo2jz sure but that begs the question - if America is such a horrible poor country then how can people from that country drive up prices? You do realize the average portuguese lives way cheaper then the average American right? People from the US have way less disposable income lol. I would love free healthcare. free college, you guys have the life of reilly. Americans arent the reason real estate is out of control. You need to clamp down on short term rentals but most people living and traveling for work are not going to be looking into these sorts of short term rentals. At the very least drenching people on vacation with super soakers is just absurd and wont solve anything.
@@TravelingwithKristin I think Francisco needs to take a Valium. There are other countries I would rather visit if this is the attitude towards foreigners. Italy isnt perfect but I found the people there( with the exception of the occasional zoomer who hates the US) to be super nice and as I speak the language that also went a long way.
There are just too many people with too much money that local economies get drastically distorted. Take Vale CO. 40 years ago Vale was a sleepy mountain town that locals could live in. The rich moved in, drove up home prices, where now the locals who work in Vale live 30 or 40 miles away and commute to be a maid or bartender. Same is hppening in Montana and all over the world. The digital nomad has recently really distorted the local market because they swoop in with their 6 figure salaries in a 5 figure or less community. Good for the digital nomad but bad for the locals.
This is a HUGE problem in Bar Harbor. They are on an island, so space is extremely limited for building. They need employees, but there isn't enough housing, and what there is is grossly unaffordable for most locals or seasonal employees. Some companies offer housing (shared), but employees who prefer not to share have zero options.
You have the opportunity to work and educate yourself, so you're not a maid or bartender anymore, in the USA....other countries are not like that...look at the average EU salary. Its really low.
This is one of the consequences of the financialization of everything. Finance and investments and banking is such a ridiculous portion of our economy, and many people who work in it can do it from a cell phone anywhere in the world.
Montanan here. I now live in South America. We gringos are displacing the locals here.
@saintpreferred9223 Don't talk to me about opportunities in Montana. I didn't want to be in the service industry and I wasn't born into a family farm or ranch so I joined the military. In the military I was kept at or just above the poverty line. I went to college when I got out and still couldn't get a good job in Montana. In the 80's when I first entered the workforce I struggled to find a service job in Montana when my family member my same age in Simi Valley California could get a different job every day of the week. Now those Californians have bought up all the properties in Montana, at inflated prices raising property taxes on everyone. Fourth generation Montanans were forced to sell family land because they couldn't afford the exploding property taxes. This is what happened in Hawaii and Spain and Portugal and Bar Harbor.
I think it was about time. Good for Spain, Portugal, Greece and the rest of the nations that will follow suit.
It's their country they can and should do as they want. Being an expat, having analyzed these visa programs many times and reading hundreds of unbiased accounts and i think that it's statistically very unlikely that the smidgen of Gold Visas issued by any country of millions of persons has hardly any effect on home price inflation. I DO acknowledge that such things can happen in concentrated highly desirable 'rich' places, neighborhoods. In the USA the perfect example is Jackson Hole Wyoming and Aspen Colorado. Probably in Spain Barcelona has some effects but not Servilla, Madrid, Granada, and many other markets that don't have many immigrants except from Muslim regions.
Real estate-based Golden Visa never should have been instituted. It was foreseeable that this would be a problem for the locals and it's not even a great way to boost economy. The focus needs to be quality job creation.
Okay, have at it! Go create some jobs! in my day I did it, I started a company and created jobs and worked myself into a horrible life trying to keep my employees in their jobs. LOL. It's a great way to learn a drinking problem.
allowing foreigners to buy propery pushes up the prices which is a form of gentrification. locals are negatively impacted by this. govts must insure that their local citizens are protected when they allow for foreign investment.
I wonder if golden visas aren't a scapegoat for other Government policy problems. I'm not sure but 15,000 golden visas since 2013 in a country with a population of 48 million doesn't seem like it would significantly influence the real estate market.
One single detainer of the visa could potentially buy a lot of real estate..
@@manuelpiot6948 You don't need golden visa to buy a property in Spain. Most likely the real problem is that AirBnB provides good income to the spaniards, so the buy properties to rent them out and many stopped renting them long-term to locals as it's less profitable.
@@s_k12Yes, this is the answer. Same as in the USA. Until countries make this kind of short term renting option illegal, there will continue to be housing shortages. A nation needs to decide who should have houses: people with families, or Airbnb landlords renting to tourists. If the Spaniards want to backlash, they should backlash against Airbnb, not Golden visas.
Perhaps to some extent but don't forget that golden visa holders are only one factor that is causing unrest in these countries.
The way real estate works is that one transaction sets the comparable for an entire neighborhood. This is why you don't need a lot of transactions to dramatically raise prices. Ultimately the government shoukd have tied the golden visa to purchasing new builds or developing new homes ie adding to the inventory rather than taking away supply from locals.
Spain's government is one of the most bureaucratic and corrupt in Europe. The main reason Spain is operational at all is thanks to EU support, which is a shame, because with effective and honest government, Spain could become an economic powerhouse. The locals know this, of course, as evidenced by a poll of Spanish college graduates: 74% said their goal is not to start a business or work in the private sector, but to work in government. They see it as a "sure thing" and the path to financial freedom. 15K golden visas is a drop in a an ocean of corruption and inefficiency.
Money money
Wow I did not know that
Spain has high youth unemployment problem too. So its a mess
Public sector jobs are pretty attractive in other places that you would be far less likely to label as bureaucratic and corrupt, not through any familiarity with those places, I would imagine. And why shouldn't people seek out stable employment? Every other aspect of most nations' economies is being deregulated to "gig" status, which is just a hipster euphemism for insecure and exploitative employment.
While golden visas might not be solely responsible for the property price bubble, they seem to involve foreign capital moving in and introducing another driver of that price inflation. It might be wonderful to be someone with a valuable real-estate asset decamping to another country to dabble in property and the lifestyle, presumably renting out that existing asset if keeping one's options open to go "home" one day, but this doesn't all happen without a social cost, either at "home" or in the golden visa venue.
Another thing that people seem to forget is that Spain and Portugal were dictatorships until about forty-odd years ago. A lot of EU support was needed to restore and upgrade those countries and their infrastructure, and there are undoubtedly many cultural factors that still linger with regard to commerce and politics. People seem to overestimate the resilience of their own democracies, unbelievably given events in recent times.
No estoy nada de acuerdo con tu punto de vista. Es cierto que aun hay corrupción (sobre todo donde gobierna algun partido de derechas) y que la burocracia puede ser un problema para los expatriados, pero para los ciudadanos en genral no lo es, puedes hacer casi todos los tramites online hoy en dia. Que muchos españoles prefieran un empleo público que trabajar en una empresa privada se debe a la estabilidad que ofrece el sector publico, frente a la inestabilidad en el sector privado, sobre todo en epocas de crisis ( imagina la diferencia durante la pandemia)., ademas en algunos sectores, cono en la enseñanza, los sueldos suelen ser mas altos en centros públicos. Nada que ver con que preferirnos no trabajar y esteriotipos de ese estilo. Y por ultimo, España, como todos los paises de la UE estan mejor ahora qie fuera de la UE, pregúntaselo a UK..
Cuando España entró en la UE tuvo que sacrificar y cerrar una parte importante de su industria y dejar de producir tanto como lo estaba haciendo, ejemplos, industria del acero, produccion agrícola y ganadera, etc, etc ,etc...
The governments of Spain, Portugal and elsewhere offering visas based on real-estate investment should have anticipated the impact on local housing costs when foreigners, especially from capital flight prone nations like China, Russia, Iran etc would pay much higher prices for real estate in these locals to get permanent residency rights. The damage is already done.
I would suggest they impose taxation on all foreigners holding golden visas who do not reside in their properties at least 180 calendar days and do not allow foreigners to rent out their properties except to nationals at reduced rents (no more than 40% of prevailing rents per square meter) with the rent differential used a a tax credit.
Important topic! Thanks for covering this.
My pleasure! I’m also interested in these topics :)
@@TravelingwithKristinYou must love the “Nomad Capitalist” then.🙂
You're welcome, @vondagrubb4623!
Mexico is getting more difficult as well. I am trying to get temporary Visa while I still can!
I know right??? Golden Visa is not an option for me anyway.
Inflation is sky high for all products and services-- especially in real estate. In the last 8 years, the property values in many booming neighborhoods of Guadalajara for example have more than doubled.
Why? So you can get mugged?
@@Mark-nx7mrJust like in the USA right?
@@labased2539we don’t all live in Cali😂😂
Only a country's citizens and permanent residents should be allowed to buy residential real estate -- and citizenships shouldn't be sold.
The problem with that, unfortunately, is that in many countries many of those properties will go uninhabited and decline, because their economies are not as robust and secure. I wholly understand the problem of homes being monopolized by foreign owners--especially hedge funds, private equity groups, and high net worth individuals purchasing them as investments--but the solution must also address related problems, such as the creation of empty, rotting houses. Instead, citizens and permanent residence should be given priority, and houses that remain empty for more than two years should be auctioned, even to foreigners, so long as those foreigners get long-term visas and live in those homes as a primary residence, spend their money in the local economy, pay taxes, etc. Perhaps residential real estate ownership of Airbnbs and other short-term rental properties should be limited to citizens, and those should be highly regulated as well, to limit their impact on the single family residence market as well.
@@izzytoons Excellent points. Thank you for your reply.
@@izzytoons They could discourage legal entities from purchasing properties by increasing taxes and offering tax discounts to local citizens. But also discourage citizens from keeping old proprties by having hefty taxes on n-th (not primary to live in) property.
@@sashkad9246 Good ideas. Also, limits on leaving properties empty (i.e., incent owners to determine a rent fee or home sale price that the market will accept, or face escalating penalties)?
Question: can the Portuguese deduct mortgage interest from taxes the way we do in the U.S.?
If so, perhaps progressively reducing, then eliminating this advantage, then adding an actual tax, for leaving a property empty? And, at some point, forfeiting the home to public auction to someone who pledges to occupy the home, at the risk of losing the home in turn.?
As a swiss i can just can say - thats why Switzerland is so successful. Stable regulations & not every view years changing circumstances.
And getting all the dirty and bloody money of the world while having the HQs of many international humanitarian institutions. Switzerland is the epitomy of hipocrisy. Neutrality or convenience?
Too expensive to visit or stay longer there for most.Too cold as well.
@@jabato9779 that’s not true because Switzerland changed its laws and it’s no longer a place of hidden money.
@@nebojsaborkovich9196I love cold! I’m researching daily Norway Sweden etc they’re colder places yet those are the most expensive to live in and harder to get in? Not everyone likes hot and I can’t figure out how my lower middle class butt can get accepted other than finding an old dude to marry ha I’m literally NOT joking! 😅
Nazi gold helped quite a bit.
These issues are around the world. Wages in Canada cannot keep up with housing costs.
Housing costs are driven by how much people can pay, so yes, wages can keep up. Supply and demand.
Kristin please do more on say 1200 or less SS income places- that can let us still do DIGITAL ONLINE WORK...combo...as I think many retires age still may want to work ONLINE or out of country.
I’m on it! New video coming soon 😊
Get a job
I understand why they’re doing it. These countries have had struggling economies for a long time now, and these policies only make it more difficult for their own citizens to afford housing in decent areas, especially if the foreigners buying are not really contributing to improve the local economies at all.
Spoiler alert: onerous government bureaucracy, heavy progressive taxes and heavy-handed regulations which crush entrepreneurship and individual initiative keep the poor in countries like Spain and Portugal perpetually poor. As for the often-maligned foreigners with resources, they are among the minority who can actually afford to travel, buy luxury goods services, improve real estate and- most importantly- start businesses to employ Spanish citizens.
@@richstewart9904 Germany is Socialist and some countries in the North are Left-Wing too!!! You know that the Portuguese government is right-wing, don't you? Since 1974, Portugal has been governed simultaneously by the Center-Left and Center-Right, normally when the 8 years of government end, the political color always changes. I can no longer say the same about the Far-Right dictatorship (which you like so much, your color) that ruled Portugal for 48 years, which closed the country to the world, delayed it, persecuted and tortured people and left them to die in the wars in Africa at the whim of the dictator. Yes, that type of dictators of Conservatives, radical/fanatical Christians, Nationalists, whatever you are used to!!!
One more thing, it was thanks to these policies that you hate so much (which are not Socialist, they are just Humanitarian) that you don't pay for an ambulance, public transport for all, school for everyone, public health where even a homeless person can be treated, 25 days of paid vacation, at least one holiday per month and paid, in December at Christmas they receive double, two salaries, and I could be here all day but I don't want!!!
All the best.
@@richstewart9904 Thank you very much, but I'm already better from last week's cold! I had a Ben-u-ron!!!
@@richstewart9904 when you look at the upvotes for others and downvotes for you- be happy that you are part of the minority. There is a majority that thinks money is dirty and one should avoid it.
@@richstewart9904 I understand what you’re saying. My main point was about these policies increasing home prices making it more difficult for their own citizens to afford homes in decent areas. Some foreigners do live in these homes full-time, sure, and in that case, spend money consistently and contribute to the local economies. But many of them use the homes as vacation homes, either STR’s or personal vacation homes, meaning they don’t spend a lot of time there to contribute to the local economies in a meaningful way. I shouldn’t have used the verbiage “at all”, it’s too categoric, and should have used “in a meaningful way”. People that purchase and use homes in this way, while they may contribute some to the economy, it likely does not offset the increase in home prices that makes home affordability more difficult for their citizens.
@TravelingwithKristin...when you're a former Green Beret combat diver instructor, and Kristin Wilson has you watching Eat Pray Love, rethinking your life in your jam jams lol.
NOT A PROBLEM!! If they do not want me, I do not want them. The World is a big place, so you should go to where you are welcome.
Exactly. And after tourists stay away for some time, they'll be crying about their economy being bad when there's no tourist money coming in. Fk 'em. I'll go somewhere else.
😉👍 _" Go where you are treated best ."_
@@sunflowerfields4409 It seems that you do not understand the concept that those who complain are the majority of people whose source of income is not related to tourism or those for whom the income from tourism does not compensate for the loss of quality of life due to the shortage of accommodation, the increase in prices for basic needs, etc. Most of those who benefit are the large companies that control the market for apartments and houses, the rest of the population sees their quality of life diminished. Like in the Canary Islands where they have even created a law to be able to declare any place as a tourist area and if you have a house there, they force you to sell it or give it away so that tourist companies can rent it out. In other words, if you have a house you cannot live in it and if you decide to rent it out, you cannot do it directly, but rather a company dedicated to tourism. Is that fair?
@@jamescalifornia2964 Nomad Capitalist? xD
@@zachary3603 - That's the guy 👌
I live in a tourist town and lived in another one in CO. The destruction that tourists do to the nature areas is horrific but everyone believes without their money they wouldn't be able to survive. The airb&bs have driven out the locals because they can't afford the raise in rentals or there are no rentals. We have lived in hotels several times while looking for a new place to rent. There is no shortage of housing in USA, if everyone with an airb&b would rent long term or rent their second homes. In my block there are 3 AB&Bs and second homes sitting vacant.
There is definitely a shortage of housing in the USA!
We need to ban owning second homes unless they live there 6 months out of the year. Tourists are a huge problem everywhere but that is because people are just the worst species. Where humans go, everything beautiful disappears.
There is an EXTREME shortage of affordable housing in the U.S.!
@@sassy0010 I said the same thing and my post was deleted :/
We need to ban the capitalist mentally of greed.
@@JoJo-vz5uy
I might think that raising the golden visa threshold only exacerbates the problem for most locals.
The housing prices skyrocketing is real. The reasons though are not just the golden Visas . Locals being mad with foreigners is somewhat misleading. It may happen every now and then, but for the most part, locals are just upset because the average joe cant afford rent. The facts may have a lot more to do with specific spikes in demand and lack of new housing options. In anycase the golden visa removal feels a more political choice than a long term well thought idea.
this is true
It's not the purchase of individual houses/condos/townhouses/apartments, etc. by those who are commited to living in those homes, contributing to the local economy, paying taxes, etc. It's the corporations and high net worth individuals scarfing them, monopolizing and manipulating the houses as assets for corporate gain. That kills the inventory and drives up prices for everyone. That has to be shut down. Give them five years to divest. Airbnbs must also be reduced and heavily regulated. It should be limited to mom and pop owners with one or two properties, and the overall number of them in each market should be controlled to suit the housing conditions in those areas.
Consistently inteliiigent concise no bull videos in a nice manner. Thanks.
Glad you like them!
Really informative; thanx!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Sorry to hear that Portugal and Spain are cancelling heir Golden Visa programs. I was planning to pony up the $$$ and pursue one of these.. I didn't realize they were so controversial, feeling a bit naive at the moment. Thanks for discussing other options.
As always, well considered, informative and useful. Thanks 😊
Thank you! I'm glad you found it helpful @Maestra_D. 😊
I don't blame them. Any time I've traveled to a country where my dollar is worth more than the local currency, I recognize that it's a good and bad thing for the country. Good for those the money is actually reaching. Bad for your average person just trying to get by. Obviously if rich investors are buying up property, that's going to reduce inventory and make what's left more expensive.
The number of GVs is so low that it didn’t impact the real estate market
@@macaccount4315 How many properties have been bought with those visas? I say several per visa.
Yes I am sure it’s totally overblown
But 15,000 GVs are not limited to 15,000 properties. They are taking many, many more out of the market, and converting most of them into rental properties, mostly short term rentals. THAT does distort the market. Diminished supply creates scarcity and drives up prices. Period.
It's happening everywhere, and its' driven by hedge funds, private equity groups, and high net worth individuals. Regulate them and short-term rentals in general, and the supply will return, and prices will drop. Construction of new homes must no doubt be part of the solution; the problem is that almost none of the housing that will be built will be affordable to the average income earner, even when a couple is involved. The economy is completely rigged. I don't mean that some people don't deserve much more. I just don't think they deserve it all.
@@izzytoons ban the daemon Germans because it is their vacation homes taking up all the real estate. Every one of my neighbors is a German! They are the real prroblem
Considering the effects here in Portugal it is time to cancel this BS. It is not just housing, but the rise in construction cost and renovation costs that have an effect on those living here.
We used to call wealthy foreigners ”currency pigs”! It is a problem when countries with a weak currency get used by countries with strong currencys. An example that is not well known is between Austria and Switzerland, the Austrians don’t like when Swiss people go there. I think the problem is universal and has existed since the 1960ies and it just gets excerbated by the wave of nationalism that is sweeping over the world now. As an example Thailand that has always been very welcoming earlier has seen a lot of violence against foreigners and it just goes to prove the thesis.
They NEED to write the rules in such a way to EMPHASIZE the benefits for locals/gov't and enrollees WHILE not allowing affordable housing to b GOBBLED UP by speculators! Plus yes I heard that Russians fleeing issues there are behind a lot of it-didn't realize other things lurking as well.
I'm not sure speculators are the problem. The problem is caused by governments making a property purchase a condition of residence. If people could get a residence permit by only purchasing government bonds, then the bond market would heat up instead of real estate.
Back then it was not possible to see the effects due to the rise of different elements like digital nomads and airbnb.
Attracting good capital with a better knowledge of risks is what they should do. And build more properties not only for high end buyers
I guess I want to know the break between the head lines about tourism, that they want tourism to stop versus getting a golden visa. If you want a visa to a country you should live in that country versus buying up cheap housing and renting it out for income, to me that is now what should be allowed in a Golden visa. Locals should be able to afford housing but the issue is global because you can't afford housing in the US either. These large corporations should not be allowed to buy thousands of houses and drive the price up so regular people can't afford them. How could they not want legal immigration with a residency visa and totally accept thousands of illegal migrants into their country. This world is upside down.
Housing costs are determined by what people can afford. If you sre renting out a place, the cost is determined by what the best renter can pay. If you want to reduce housing costs, then build more housing. More supply will reduce rents since landlords would be competing for tenants.
I live in a small Florida town and tons of people come all summer from Us and International destinations. It’s so over visited we can’t even get to work because of the traffic. Housing has skyrocketed in the area. Locals can’t afford to live here either but it doesn’t give us the right to stop people coming here. What the international people are complaining about happen in the US just as much. How can we tell people where they can go or visit because we need tourism to pay our bills. Would have fought for that law years ago.
@@valorieb5229 Perfect example of foreign money buying up another country.
Florida really needs some commuter trains that function because with the traffic and building more traffic lanes all the time to accommodate the ever building subdivisions for people that come to Florida.
@@enjoystraveling Not on the radar of our corrupt politicians.
Hard to have a stable real estate market either prices go down because many people move away or they increase because too many people want to move in or visit.
@@enjoystravelingyou can say the same about all of the USA.
They blame golden visas but the impact is insignificant. The lack of good planning from these countries is. The housing will get worse there and let´s find out who they will blame then. Iberians/Latins have a tendecy to not be accountable for they're actions, specially in politics.
facts
Not quite sure about the lack of accountability you are referring to. This same problem, with gentrification and exclusion of locals from their own communities is a phenomenon we see in many different places around the world. Take California for instance, where real estate prices have been skyrocketing in such an unbearable manner through the last decades. Actually, a great example why so many Americans (Californians) have been opting for Portugal: similarly great in many aspects but affordable. Let’s not even mention all the other factors that are also (so far) a plus in a country like Portugal, i.e health care, safety, and so forth.
You don't have a clue what you are talking about. Housing prices are based on inventory. If houses are being scarfed up for investment purposes by hedge funds, private equity groups, and high net worth individuals, and most of these are converted to expensive long and short term rentals, of course the market will be distorted. Of course prices will skyrocket. That happens everywhere. Locals are driven out and forced to commute long distances to crappy jobs. Single-family properties (houses, condos, and townhomes) must be heavily regulated to ensure there is adequate supply for middle class homeownership, in large part because that is their primary means of generating the kind wealth they need to supplement their retirement incomes...
Many of the Portuguese are being extremely stressed on their low wages. The drastic increase in housing and food here has thus made it even more challenging for them to live. Another issue is most home loans are not fixed but variable. Some friends have seen their monthly loans skyrocket from 200 Euros to 600 Euros (almost minimum wage). The 'tacho' or nepotism around here has also caused severe political pressure to answer these questions. This past year has been tough as they have also been pressured to cancel the NHR...
Kristin is also correct that many of those involved in the increase of housing prices are not American. A significant number of Chinese are purchasing property here and driving up the cost. Some of it is investment, and some of it is them purchasing property for their children to go to school in cities like Coimbra, Braga, etc. Hence, these smaller cities are seeing higher rates of increase than Lisbon and Porto.
There is a very strong anti-English-speaking sentiment here. Part of it is the feeling that English speakers are elitist and stealing their culture. The other part is that life is already difficult for them, and we are an easy scapegoat. The Golden Visa might come back, but only when they find a new scapegoat.
Please explain non- lucrative visa for France, Spain, and Italy. And what are constraints, if any, for remote work.
We have the same issue in the USA. Foreign and rich top 1percent investment is raising housing costs in some states like Texas.
Here are the facts:
The golden visa represents less than 1% percent of real estate transactions in Spain. Which is about 14,500 transactions since 2013. Yet golden visa investors are the ones to blame for inflation and the Spanish real estate market? Please.
The socialist communist prime minister of Spain knows better but he lies. The real reasons why Spain is having these problems are:
Rampant illegal immigration, poor economic growth due to high taxes and big government. Decreasing productivity, printing money to waste it on green energy and programs for illegals and the huge bureaucracy that don’t allow real estate developers to build new housing.
But they have the nerves to blame investors for their problems. But that’s how they are and they get away with it wit the help of the media.
So go where you and your money are treated best.
When things get sketchy for a national government, it is always easy to blame the non-citizens of your country. They aren't entitled to the same constitutional safeguards (whatever those might be) as mere residents and making those residents into "others" to defer (usually justified) dissatisfaction from yourself and your administration is not usually a hard lift.
The most successful of politicians are, unfortunately, very good at getting their constituents to "major in the minors" so to speak, and become distracted from the actual causes of the issues they might face.
@@Agg1E91 "When things get sketchy for a national government, it is always easy to blame the non-citizens of your country."
This is true. However, this situation must be one of the rare occasions when wealthy, non-citizens are being blamed for something. Usually, the scapegoating targets poor or regular people who cannot really defend themselves and certainly aren't able to lawyer up to challenge any decisions made by the government.
As for whether wandering capital is making it harder for people to find housing, I would suggest that it makes a bad situation even worse. Property has become the investment of choice, resulting in excessive, often under-reported price inflation. Predatory rental practices (including short-term letting, especially where housing is scarce) follow from soaring prices because owners have to find more capital for their "investment" and thus more income, but I imagine that greed or a lack of income from traditional investments also play their part.
If the property market were appropriately taxed, there would be housing for everyone. I find it amusing that the initiator of this thread rails against "communist" (hint: not communist) policies including those that would keep the planet viable for human civilisation, wanting property developers to be unburdened. That deregulated approach was one of the things that brought about the financial crisis of 2007-2008, as people with lower incomes in Spain were pushed towards mortgages they couldn't afford in a housing market where the rents were already unaffordable for those people.
But I'm sure some people want to run that experiment again just to produce the same results. Lots of people suffered, but I'm sure they did rather well out of it.
such an ignorant POV😓
well said
14,500 visas do not mean just 14,500 properties purchased. Many more are purchased. Along with hedge fund, private equity group, and high net worth individuals purchasing tons of properties, shrinking inventory, and distorting the market (which is absolutely pegged to supply), of course a housing crisis is created. Not just there but everywhere. Housing purchases for investment and long- and short-term rentals MUST be heavily regulated until homeownership regains its position as a standard component of the middle class bargain, and the middle class can once again use it as their major source of wealth creation. The 1% has other vehicles; let them stay there.
I think it is fine to have golden Visas, they just need to up the price and add more restrictions. Let's say a country has a tourist visa of 90 days, well then a golden Visa would have the added stipulation that you would have to remain in the country for 180 days per year to maintain your visa status. This way it shows a commitment to spending money and time in the country.
And maybe limit the amount of homes that can be purchased like this relative to a city’s population. So it’s not a free for all who are rich while pushing out locals.
...so you can be taxed to the moon? No thanks.
Well, they need more than. Because higher net worth individuals will just buy up those properties, convert most of them to rental, shrink the housing inventory of single family properties, and drive prices up. Upping the cost of the Golden Visa is something to considering, but limiting and regulating the purchase and use of those homes is also a key factor.
Another correction, the Spanish digital nomad visa IS a path to permanent residency, but only if it’s the 3-year version you can obtain by applying from within Spain. The 1-year version does not count towards PR, but after obtaining it and moving to Spain, you can apply to convert to the 3-year version. I know it’s hard to keep up with all of this but just wanted your viewers to know the scoop!
Those issues can be handled with regulations like Greece is doing. They should keep the programs ...at least is a good way for Govts to generate revenue.
It is starting to look like a lot of countries around the world don’t want long term visitors it will end up costing them financially unless their rents are cheap.
If you've been to Europe in the summer you'd understand why. So many Americans like to trash talk Europe, yet Americans absolutely flood Europe. They can't get enough. And it drives prices up and more and more of the locals are driven out of their cities. They have commute longer and longer distances to get to even low-paying jobs. It's a problem here, too.
@@izzytoons what do you mean Europeans trash talk the USA every time they say the states instead of the USA
@@vgshwk Huh? I didn't say that. I said many Americans trash talk Europe (because they feel superior to Europeans), yet they go to Europe in droves, which I think indicates that, quite to the contrary, European ways of life produce enormously attractive destinations.
It seems that the desire to gain passive income from rental properties is at the heart of many housing issues. In several Italian cities the locals have begun turning their long-term rentals into airBnBs which he had the effect of deteriorating the community as locals can no longer afford to live in the city centers. So local markets which rely on the local population are disappearing. Curb the use of private residences as rentals and you will block or at least slow down the rise in rent and housing prices.
But there is always a bit of gentrification which impacts the lowest income levels even when only citizens are influencing it.
Not cancelled yet. In fact it was just a policy announcement. No legislation has been written. There’s still time to get the Spanish golden visa. (And there will be ongoing alternatives to buying property.)
It's called buying your plan B. My hometown was bought up by out if state investors. I haven't been able to live there for the last 20 years.
So now that Portugal removed the housing portion of the golden visa, how has their housing market reflected that?
Great video Kristin. In the middle when you start talking about non/lucrative visas and digital nomad visas, I think you mistakingly say golden visa.
Great video my friend. 👍🏼 Cheers from 2 Canadians 🇨🇦 living in Mexico 🇲🇽 🥰 ✌🏼
Thank you @2GringosOnTheGulf!
Black Rock and Bill Gates company buying up all the real estate is obviously wrong. You should be able to own one house with very low taxes. A 2nd home with a high tax and a 3rd home with a very very high tax and a 4 th home with taxes so high it is impossible to pay. Same with corporations .
There should be a limit of two single family homes per person (this includes condos and townhouses) until housing contruction catches up with housing needs. Homeownership is the bedrock of middle class wealth creation. It is being eviscerated by 1%er vultures: hedge funds, private equity groups, and high net worth individual. Home ownership and long and short term rentals must be regulated until the middle class regains its primary source of wealth creation.
@@izzytoons More home construction is stopped and delayed by government regulations. You cannot build here or there because of green stuff. If government need more houses they need to get rid of regulations. Socialist governments love more green regulations and also they love high taxes. With fewer homes taxes remain high rents remain high which means higher taxes, So socialist government has no reason to build more houses.
Great video. The days of golden visas in Europe are numbered. I think that digital nomad visas in Europe will also meet the same fate in a few years when they can crunch the numbers and see the effect on rental prices. Wish that wasn't the case, but the writing is on the wall and countries are leaning right nowadays.
Their countries protect their citizens, unlike the land of the "free".
Apparently,..YOU didnt hear about the crazy riots in the UK over the past few weeks, due to just this very issue of "protecting their citizens" loL!
pLUS!
If it was so true that canceling these golden vias programs were some administrative step taken to protect their citizens then WHY did it take over ten years to do it???
The odd inability of some people to either listen or perform basic online research and practice genuine critical thinking explains a whole lot about how the land of the "free" is about to get its first female POTUS,..LoL!
@@richstewart9904 waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! save me nanny state protect me from the fascist boot stompers, i need my bottle.
Ask a Spaniard who was forced to abandon his country to find work overseas how well his home country "protects" him. The video talks about real estate; there are scores of empty homes and apartments scattered across Spain whose owners cannot afford to live in because of no jobs, but also cannot afford to sell because of onerous transfer taxes. Finally, they are loathe to rent as an absentee landlord because if a tenant decides not to pay, it can take years and tens of thousands in legal fees to get them out. I think the only "Land of the free" is on the Moon.
@@h5mind373 I agree completely, but protecting/hindering your people from prosperity versus catastrophe are different.
You are welcome to leave.
The PT GV has great programs even without the real estate option. Note it’s just the coastal areas that are restricted
Let me simplify it for everyone. Spain thought (erroneously), or was lead to believe, that "development, as the Americans and other Europeans saw it, was the best way for the Southern European countries right after WW2, and so tourism started, at first it was "curious " to see these strange people, with strange languages, and manners of dressing and behaving, come to the beaches and towns in Spain and just got naked, and I mean fully naked, on public beaches - No one ever did that in Spain, so you can imagine men's reactions (not to mention their wives). So from the very beginning, tourism changed the culture in Spain drastically. Then as many thousands of tourists found their way into Spain, and discover its cheap prices, abundant sun, and accommodating locals, the Brits, and Germans started pouring in. Many of them started a trend of hotel rentals that left the locals looking like second class citizens in their own country - many unable to afford a simple hotel room to go to their own beaches. And history moved on but things go worse. Many tourists started buying properties, and opening businesses (for other tourists, of course), thus alienating the local seven more, after a couple of World crisis, house prices went through the roof - International investors discover how to create a feudal capitalist systems and subjugate the locals. Today, even students have a hard time finding a room to rent when they leave home to study at university, let alone buying a house to start a family. The benefits of so many millions of tourist - gone with the wind - most of it syphoned by tour operators, and others. The pristine beaches are no more, instead a wall of hotels, and cheap souvenir and restaurants cover the coast, ITs clear waters are not full of plastic and other human waste. Its fish gone. Car pollution is a mayor cause of death in Spain now. And the sis not the whole story, but if after reading this short summary, you are still wondering why most Spanish people prefer not to have tourists, you haven't understood anything - perhaps you too should come and see for yourself.
@juansantana8448 you have provided a great synopsis of what has happened in your country. Spain did not regulate who could buy properties or how cash flowed into or out of Spain. You have the right to do so as a country. If you look at where people are coming from to use Spain's Golden Visa --mainly China, Russia and Iran---all countries with a wealthy elite and mostly impoverished citizens. One must ask why these wealthy are moving their monies out of their country and not helping their own citizens. Its to hide their monies from their home countries and with that mentality they have no regard for the health and welfare of the countries they "invest" in the Golden Visa and since they have not exhibited any moral compass for their fellow citizens of their home country they will most likely not invest in the citizens of Spain or any other country they are "allowed to buy their way into." So they use their properties purchased under a Golden Visa not to actually reside in so they will do whatever they can to make money from them and pull it into their own personal wealth without contributing to the local economy or the cultural health of where their property is located. If these Golden Visa recipients do not personally live in the purchased properties then they do not buy local services such as gasoline, groceries, vehicles/transportation etc so they can actually drain the local economy, while raising the affordability costs of locals citizens.
We have had this happen in the USA as well. As and example: In Hawaii we have had foreigners buy hotels, tour buses, restaurants etc and then sell tours to people in their home country. NONE of these monies ever reached Hawaii to contribute to income taxes, business taxes, sales taxes, etc. These foreign tour companies under reported their sales majorly and also local Hawaii residents as well as other tourists could not access these hotels or tourist services --so they used our airports, roads, municipal services, law enforcement, as well as our natural resources like water, beaches etc while excluding the local citizens and requiring the local citizens to subsidizing their vacation companies with all of these Hawaii resources. It takes a concerted effort of local residents to speak up and to change locals laws and regulations otherwise it will continue. To see how crazy it can absolutely get please look up videos on TH-cam with the fires destroying Lahaina Maui Hawaii (an ancient center of Hawaiian culture and life). When the wealthy come in and want the properties of local citizens who do not want to sell their family homes and businesses. Criminal.
@@nancylucas4231
Eloquently and thoughtfully articulated...
Hello Kristin, always a pleasure to watch your videos. - Well, re your question. I do have some understanding for the locals re golden visas. Indeed their reaction is comparable to their views re Digital Nomads. I have read blogs where Digital Nomads are outrightly not welcomed. - On one side I do understand that locals get negatively impacted by the consequences of the Golden Visa residents on the other side, I have to say: In today's world everybody who wants to improve his market value in order to generate more income has his chance. It's enormous what one can do online. - I am currently working on several online education programs. So what I can do, they can do too. The internet has made the world more competitive. That's a fact. All the whining and complaining is not going to change a hoot about that. - So even when countries are cutting back their Golden Visa programs, this will not really change all that much. Just wait and see.
I love the color of the lipstick you are wearing here. It goes well with your natural color.
Thanks!
House visa programs should be setup along side other requirements to help the area.
😊👍 My favorite travel channel 💕
Wow, thank you so much @jamescalifornia2964!
Overtourism becomes a real problem for Europe Especially the famous Cities like Amsterdam or Barcelona and the countries with good climate. In the summer you hear more English spoken in Spain then Spanish. People have enough. It triggers the inflation and often ruins cultural places.
nice to see you all smiles again.
Thank you @jleffel6969!
It looks more like scapegoating of the Golden Visa group. The far bigger issue in many of these countries is the amount of bank lending for housing, In many countries, the cost of construction (materials & labour) is 25% to 33% of the sales price of a property, the rest goes to the developer, who does have some real costs, but the big chunk goes to the land/ site cost, this drives up land values and encourages developers and planners to build higher density housing, reducing the quality of life for the occupants. Reducing bank lending for new builds would cut off the fuel for unaffordable land values, lending for older properties should be reduced too as they have partly worn out / depreciated like a car, if fully renovated, then more could be borrowed but not as much as an entirely new property. Similarly reduce immigration/ population levels so some properties are empty, re-built. The Golden Visas probably impacted the local middle classes / professionals, hence the media catching on and maling an issue of it. Then the AirBnb issue should in theory be a boost to tourism, so who loses out? Well hoteliers, tour operators, etc, another self interested group. I don't know the answer to that question, as regulating a market where the workers are low paid but there is high demand for visitor accommodation. How can families, communities live and function in such circumstances?
I was never interested in living in Europe. So far, my two-week trip to Panama City Panama impressed me. Unfortunately, I have three years until I retire. I plan to go back next year and spend time in Boquete and David. Might take a two-day trip to Colombia.
All a symptom of macro-economics. The betterment of the few at the cost of the many. Amazon is a microcosm of this. I know an extremely competent, bi-lingual Portuguese person who has to work ‘overseas’ because the conglomerates at home pay meagre, barely life-sustaining wages.
AirB&B is divisive and should be banned or taxed out of existence.
Great content
Great video!
I want to buy a small condo in France. I think I should search your channel to see what you have said!
This is great to know! I can understand how these golden visas can affect the housing costs as well as taxes.
It’s about time.
I remember when many Japanese people were buying houses in the US decades ago. Some politicians and people were complaining about it. But when people looked at the numbers closely most of the foreigners who were buying houses in the US were coming from Great Britain. But of course they didn't stick out so people didn't say anything.
❤❤ You're My Golden Visa travel girl...thank you HUGZ...🎉🎉
Thank you!
@@TravelingwithKristin be safe and tell me more about travel to the safest Peace loving natiions...
Hello again, so sorry to hear that you will be off road for the best reasons.
Thank you for your understanding @patsyg32
DNV gives you 3 yrs temporary residence and can be renewable. it also count for citizenships specially to those former Spanish colony which only requires 2 yrs
Does EU has rights to impose rules on how nations define their laws on citizenship and residence at all? For USA, as a single country, it's obviously a prerogative of the federal government... AFAIK, EU is imposing these rules on some non-EU countries, like Albania and Macedonia. Why???
As always, interesting content. Thinking to retire in Europe myself. Which European countries still offer pensioners visa ? thanks.
Thanks Steven, I made a video about retiree visas you can watch here! th-cam.com/video/v9iuFuN7_J0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=HmAlZ6N7IpN4HKmr
NONE, go to S America
These countries have misplaced blame. Real estate prices are skyrocketing across the world as asset managers and hedge funds seek out better +/- more stable returns.
I hope they understand that they can add requirements to the golden visa to help alleviate many of the problems. Locals are not going to solve these issues and need a combination of both to get to where they need to be in the economy. This is applicable to anywhere unless there is a war that levels out everything, we will need to adapt to the always inevitable changes that come as byproducts of growth and progress which is inflation and an imbalance of change within the local economies.
Step 1: Buy a quality farmed identity in your home country. As an American I know there are criminal organizations that will sale you an unused Social Security Number, etc.
Step 2: Have that identity apply for a visa, then residency, then citizenship.
Step 3: Profit, now you can flee the country if you need to and they'll have the wrong information.
Obviously joking those fake socials are tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars and whats worse it's a felony.
How preposterous. 15,000 Golden Visa applications through real estate is moving the Spanish real estate market? Fundamental lack of any form of logic or critical thinking being applied. A purely politically motivated move.
Nomad Capitalist, “Andrew Henderson” must feel some type of way about this? BRICS is having an impact!
Rental and housing prices are going up everywhere at an alarming rate. Perhaps there are other factors in play here other than the golden visas.
Capital flight might be another reason why countries woud want to cooperate in limiting Golden Visa options. Just as how they cooperate when setting tax rates for new immigrants/residents.
Too much inequality and too much wealth concentrated with too few people.
AMEN!
Spain’s wage growth seems to have been pretty stagnant over the past decade. Meanwhile, its home price index is around 148 (it was 100 in 2015). Factor in around 15% inflation since 2021 and it seems clear that the purchasing power of the average Spaniard has deteriorated, making it difficult to afford a home. The country is also short around 325k homes, so low supply is likely also responsible for keeping prices elevated.
Although I favor renting on Airbnb because there isn't an option for anything else when traveling with 2 or more people in a friend or sibling etc group that requires more than one bedroom. I feel guilty everytime because I know it takes away from the local available long term rental market. I've been in short term rentals of 2-3 weeks in one location then another week in another location traveling in Europe that the same host I'm using has upward of 10+ other locations.
I know in my own country 🇨🇦 anytime a community throws out Airbnb etc rentals or suites sitting empty obviously only used for speculation or foreign investment the first ones to express issues are the group investors etc that have rented the units long-term specifically to post onto the short term rental market. Specifically in the tight housing market of Toronto Vancouver Kelowna etc.
In markets like Spain and Portugal where the wages are so much lower and the residents can't even afford to live in their own towns and cities in decent conditions where they work because of people like me using Airbnb.
There needs to be more apartment hotels avail for tourists with 2+bedrooms in both Portugal and Spain. That alone would help the residential market.
Just my opinion
Kristin, you did use British spelling in "canceling".
Everybody cancelling Golden Visas until they in a massive crippling recession and need foreign income.
Why are people moving from their home countries is also a question
See any similarity between property purchase sources and farm ownership? International issues.
Taxes in Spain are outrageous if you're a high-income earner - I hear the taxation rate can go as high as 60%! Best to have an LLC taxed as an S-Corp so you can put yourself on a low payroll before you relocate...
Just got my croatian citizenship by ancestry just in time. This will be the thing to fall. Guaranteed. When I applied it was a 6 month wait now it's 2 years. You'll see countries start shutting this down. Watch
There's not a single person watching this video or posting in the comments who would have ever been a serious candidate for a golden visa anyway. This visa has a catchy name, so people get all worked up over it. Having immigrated to Portugal, I've seen the GV in action. It is a very good thing that Portugal and others have curtailed the GV. These countries are continuously shaping their immigration policies, and the GV has largely served its purpose. If your goal is to live in Portugal, the GV should never have been a serious option anyway. The GV is for wealthy people who want Portuguese residency without having to actually live in Portugal. Perfect for people with some money in notoriously corrupt countries like Russia, China, or Iran, and a good vehicle to hide some of their wealth should they fall out of favor with the government. For people who actually want to immigrate to Portugal and live here, the GV was probably the worst way to do that. Expensive as hell and incredibly slow. Takes years to process vs a few months for a D7 or D8. Golden visas have always been over hyped.
Also, the GV barely had a measurable impact on the real estate market in Portugal. The massive growth in short-term rentals (AirBnB) has done far more damage. Measures to rollback the number of AL properties, especially in Lisbon and Porto will have a very positive effect over time. Another huge factor in Portugal that doesn't seem to get much attention was the "expression of interest" immigration path that the Portuguese government recently shut down. The Portuguese government agency in charge of processing visa applications and immigration (AIMA) is swamped with over 400,000 expression of interest applications.These are people already in Portugal, in need of very affordable housing. Now that will put pressure on the housing market.
The thing that everyone needs to understand is demographics. Next to climate change, this is the single most important factor driving these decisions. If you fail to understand the demographic situation the entire world faces, then you'll never understand the world you live in. The human population on this planet is nearing its peak. In the next decade or two, the global population will start to drop. You see this already in a great many countries. Once a country's fertility rate falls below 2.1 children per woman, the population starts to decline and age. Portugal and Spain have some of the lowest fertility rates in the EU, at 1.4 and 1.3 respectively. Both countries need an infusion of working age people to do the work and pay into the social security system. Expect their immigration policies to reflect that.
First and foremost, the fact that these governments are looking out for their citizens' concerns is wonderful. Golden visas should from this point, if not discontinued altogether, have extremely stringent regulations and vetting processes. It does not matter where the wealth comes from. The list you gave about a third of the way through regarding national security is a good place to start. Start by having goverment lawmakers come up with new, refined and positive restrictions while taking into considerations the wide and varied concers of their citizens.
I agree - they should definitely put their citizens’ needs first and foremost.
the Chinese abused it.....causing these changes
Kristin, so professional, love your american accent , love your eyes, i'd give you the visa you wanted If it were up to me
Thank you for the kind words! 🙏
Looks like most countries just think of their own citizens first. Also a lot of migrants run away from their own country to find better life elsewhere.
Why not stay in one's own country and make it wealthy by hard work and with science and Engineering.
Smart people are everywhere and in every country.
Maybe foreigners are pricing locals out of real estate.
To tell you the truth, worrying about these golden visa programs in the EU is sorta like worrying about the decline of room service on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. It is a relatively minor issue that portends much bigger problems. These visa programs were set up to 1) attract the wealthy, 2) bring economic development, and 3) line the pockets of corrupt officials and institutions, in some countries. When such programs are discontinued, its a sure sign that they haven't worked out in the ways the lawmakers intended them to. Lots of reasons for this, but suffice it to say that the prime mover is public discontent. When expats, foreign investors, and even just foreign tourists damage the economy and lifestyle of the locals, watch out! This is nothing new. Foreign dollars...especially in more developed/semi-developed countries often creates inflation in real estate and the cost of living. Result: All those warm, friendly locals that once welcomed you and tolerated you butchering their language are suddenly spraying water at you in cafes and parading with placards reading "Foreigners Go Home!". The laws of the country eventually follow suit. This ISN'T mixing apples and oranges. The economics and social upheaval behind expatriatism, foreign investment, and tourism is inextricably linked. Canada and New Zealand have raised barriers to foreign real estate investment. Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and others ban foreign land ownership, limit land ownership, limit or ban certain types of real estate purchases, or require foreigners to submit to ridiculous and risky purchase terms. The Malaysia MM2H visa was suspended, gutted, then changed in ways that present expats with fewer options and much more risk. There are bad signs in Portugal, as well. Even in the more expat-friendly places like Costa Rica, Panama, and Malta consumer inflation is steadily eroding much of the financial incentive to move there. This is leading people to consider a new tranche of countries that are cheap, but far less developed and often not as appealing. They include crime-ridden places like Colombia and El Salvador or hot, humid places like Cambodia, Indonesia, Paraguay, and Mauritius. Bottom-line: Be prepared to work harder and spend more to find a good overseas retirement destination...and if it starts to become popular, be aware that that popularity is probably making things harder for the locals.
It's sad that countries putting various restrictions on people's freedom of movement.! When we get to see all countries coming together and become one to protect the humanity?? After all..we all belong to this earth then why so much restrictions?? By the way..Happy to see you.!
It's not the countries themselves that want to drop them. It's the large countries and world bodies that put pressure on the countries offering the Golden Visa's to drop them because they want to make it difficult for people to leave their tax jurisdictions.
It's bs because less than 1 percent of properties in Spain purchased were from the golden visa.
The biggest problem with the golden visas is that they demand people to have much to very much money and buy houses and invest.
This has resulted in only people with much money coming and of course that increases the property prices, risks of corruption and criminals coming.
If other people that have enough money to live in that country and be more on par or just above the locals in buying power would be given these long time visas instead, these people would almost only give positives to the country and the area they chose to live in.
In my opinion have the demands for getting a golden visa in many of the countries been totally insane.
They have been and in many countries still are, an invitation to the rich, very rich and criminals and not ordinary people at all.
It is so extremely obvious that they only wanted people with tons of money to come and for some countries it is VERY obvious that some people have been skimming off a lot of that money through corruption.
I also don't think it is a coincidence that many of the countries with golden visas also are countries with much to extremely much corruption.
In my opinion will the result only be bad when all the foreigners coming to live in the country are much richer than the local population.
This is a receipt for a lot of problems in my opinion.