How to Solve the Housing Crisis
Now, don’t take me too seriously here, but there is an easy way to solve the housing crisis. We have too many homes for people with the means to buy them to occupy them. We also have too much debt to foreigners that they don’t know what to do with. Well, let’s kill two birds with one stone: Make a one-time offer of green cards to any foreigner who is willing to buy a house in the US worth $250,000 or more, free and clear.
There are many advantages to this proposal:
- The foreigners that come will be wealthy, and will contribute even more to the US economy.
- They will appreciate the stability and freedom of the US, and will send back positive signal to their powerful friends back in the “old country.”
- Many will want a home in the US for vacations. Others for a place to flee if politics turns against them in the “old country.” Either way, we get more of their money.
- If we want foreigners as citizens, we will be skimming the cream, rather than Emma Lazarus’ comments on the Statue of Liberty. (Now, if you want to know my heart, I like immigrants, especially poor ones… they work hard to make America great.)
- It solves problems in mortgage lending and the current account deficit in one fell swoop.
Now, this comes close to selling citizenship. I don’t want that; they would still have to take the citizenship test, and have the residency requirement. Personally, I would like all new citizens to know English as well as the 25th percentile in the US does now. (low bar)
This is only partially serious; there are cultural aspects to immigration that are unpopular today. I would only say to those that don’t like an idea like this, is that your great-grandparents (or so) were openly welcomed here a century ago. Should we not welcome political, economic, and other migrants looking for a better life, even as our great-grandparents did? Or are we more stingy than a generation that welcomed our great-grandparents, even if they had stronger negative views against those of different ethnic groups?
March 2nd, 20086:17 pm at
Many other countries openly offer special “investor class” visas to immigrants with money; Canada and Australia among others. Investing in housing rather than a business is a slightly different twist, but is this something genuinely new under the sun that would attract large numbers of moneyed immigrants, given that they’ve more or less had a similar option already for some time?
Would it really solve the current account deficit? According to Warren Buffett’s latest shareholder news letter, the US exports about $2 billion a day worth of “savings glut” to the rest of the world… at $250,000 per person, that would require 8000 wealthy immigrants a day = 3 million a year (not counting their families who would need to get residence too). Are there really that many qualified candidates in the world who’d actually be interested?
In practice, I doubt such a program would make a meaningful dent in either housing inventory or financial deficits.
March 3rd, 20083:27 am at
They already do this though not tied to housing. I think if you invest $1mm ($500k in certain areas) and employ a certain number of people you can get a green card. This is basically selling citizenship and they have been doing it for a long time. Ever wonder why so many franchise businesses are owned by immigrants - its viewed as a ’safe’ way to meet the investment requirement.
March 3rd, 200812:39 pm at
Well, I wrote about it three months ago here: http://muddlinginvestor.blogspot.com/2007/12/housing-crisis-and-immigration.html
My idea is a little bit different, but result might be the same. Both solutions are politically impossible though.
March 3rd, 20081:05 pm at
Sounds like this could be a way to get around H1-B restrictions: sell someone a $250,000 house in exchange for them accepting an employment agreement at below-market rates.
I also don’t see how manipulating the housing market to raise prices will solve the problem, given that the problem is that prices are too high and people who buy expect to be bailed out by sweeping financial gestures.
March 3rd, 20085:17 pm at
Since you were only being half-serious, so shall I…
After housing has bid-up to be so unaffordable to the average American that prices are collapsing under their own weight due to the costs of debt-servicing, you want to import foreigners to take up the slack!?! Do your children know this?