Yeah, I remember some discussions with references to foreign/chinese buyers etc, especially in Vancouver iirc. With such remarkably high real estate values you have, I'm assuming rents are at least affordable for those that can't afford to own. That dichotomy here seems to be disappearing, as the rental costs are soaring too.
Sure it did and does, at the expense of the rest of the entire population who does not own yet. Why not go a step further and make wives speculative instruments as well, you know a bidder market, I get to rent your wife for a night if I pay top dollar. Soon you yourself will be priced out to have your wife at home at all. After all it's all speculation and any object or individual could potentially be seen as an investment... Is this really the world you want to live in?
The inventory crunch has been exacerbated far more by affordable housing mandates than corporate buyers. Every time a municipality forces a builder to sell/lease at well below market rates, they must build even more expensive properties to compensate for the reduced margins and profitability. Some builders have bailed in these areas, others are building far more expensive dwellings. The cheap units get snapped up by those with gov't vouchers and section 8 status while the working lower/middle class are left with ever more expensive housing options. You keep referring to this rise in prices as some kind of game perpetuated by big money Wall Street guys, as if there's a coordinated effort to corner a market or something. In reality, places like San Francisco (that claim to care so much about affordability and the poor) are creating environments where the housing is the most expensive in the country.
Real estate values here ( Toronto ) are fair compared to other thriving NA cities. Rents aren't cheap you can downsize or move out of town. That's how markets work. Foreign buyers are a tiny portion of our market.
Those variables are nothing new. Investors are also staying away for the most part from areas where the property prices are highest, like SF.
I think the above post is true, the goverments especially in Europe are buying lots of affordable housing and have what's perceived as a blank cheque, construction materials are massively profitable at the moment too. Its such an array of things contributing to it imo