
Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose - pitdesi
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/20/8413642-buy-a-home-get-a-us-visa-senators-propose
======
OstiaAntica
This is the type of unserious, policy-by-press release we've come to expect
from the micromanagers in the U.S. Congress.

First of all, housing is still overpriced, in terms of historic trends, in
many markets.

Second, this is yet another program for ICE, which cannot manage its current
immigration visa portfolio. This idea seems particularly open to abuse, since
the home could be bought with borrowed money. (Sure it has to be "cash"
investment but there's an asset here, you could easily cash out or have straw
buyers.)

I wish these guys would come up with better solutions to the banking crisis
(yes, it isn't over) than selling U.S. visas.

~~~
daniel-cussen
We already sell/monetize US visas. You have to invest a few hundred thousand
in a US-based business and you get a Visa. I believe the amount is 500,000.

------
9999
Give me your energetic, your rich, Your striding elite yearning to oppress,
The vaunted gild of your desolate shore. Send these, the landowners, first-
class-turbulence-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the door for those with
gold!

~~~
temphn
America is broke. If you want to tax the rich you need to let them into the
country. And people buying a house aren't that rich anyway. Besides, this is
very similar to the immigration policy of Canada or Singapore, which also give
points if you buy property and start a business in the country. Their
economies are vastly outperforming ours and it might be worth emulating them.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Although Singapore is outperforming our economy (on a per-capita basis),
Canada is not. Why do you believe emulating them will get us Singapore-like
benefits rather than Canada-like harms?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

~~~
pyre
1\. The Canadian economy is largely based on exporting goods to the US or
exporting natural resources world-wide.

2\. When the Canadian dollar reaches par with the US dollar, the benefits of
US companies doing things across the bordering Canada rapidly evaporates. This
means that economies like Ontario start doing poorly, while economies like
Alberta and British Columbia that have natural resources to export start doing
better (well, at least when coupled with an increase in oil prices.. because
the tar sands become viable).

3\. A lot of money comes into the Canadian economy through the entertainment
industry. There are huge tax breaks in Ontario (specifically Toronto) and BC
(specifically Vancouver) for doing things there, in addition to the exchange
rate (when the US dollar is riding higher).

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FilterJoe
I'll go out on a limb here and say I like the basic idea. One major detail I
would change is to make it a $100,000 or $50,000 minimum instead of $500,000.
There are many parts of the country where it's hard to even find a house
that's as expensive as $250,000. I'd like something like this to be open to
all parts of the country and I'd like it to be open to middle class as well,
not just wealthy people.

Why do I like it?

* Fill vacant homes (as opposed to urban blight)

* There are many indirect economic benefits like money spent fixing homes, all the day to day purchasing that will be done by the new residents, etc.

* In some cases, individuals will be able to rejoin relatives more easily.

The urban blight thing is the one I care about most. I live in the East Bay of
California and have seen certain neighborhoods totally fall apart as dozens of
vacant homes attracted vandalism, drugs, and other forms of crime and caused
remaining residents hardship.

EDIT: formatting

~~~
juiceandjuice
Well, the places where it's super hard to find a house at 500k, and somewhat
easy at 100k, are the border states... New Mexico, Arizona, Texas (and
Nevada). In these places, the 500k house is going to be the cream of the
crop... the top 1%. Southern California is a different issue, but this isn't
going to help the places where the housing market really took a shit, like
Nevada and Arizona, because the market there is saturated with foreclosures of
homes that might have originally sold for 500k but are probably worth half
that much in the current market. The poisonous idea is that these homes were
actually worth that much money, but they never were. The artificial demand of
the sub-prime mortgage crisis pushed prices up where they should never had
been. The 500k limit would try to, again, artificially inflate the worth of
the house by stimulated demand in the highest priced homes, homes which should
probably sell closer to 350, because the 150k premium might be worth it for
some families to get a visa. The second problem with this thinking is that
anyone who qualifies for a 500k house would likely be rich enough to get a
visa in the US anyways as an investor.

A lower limit of 150k would be reasonable for boosting the middle class, and
actually helping the housing market, but that's obviously not the goal.

~~~
mbreese
I agree, it would be difficult to find a house in Indiana for 500K... Perhaps
the metric should be based on median home prices..

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geebee
Another terrible idea, in my opinion.

When an employee interviews with a company, the company should decide if the
employee gets a job, not a visa.

When a PhD candidate defends a dissertation, the university should decide if
the student gets a degree, not a visa.

When an entrepreneur applies for venture capital, the investor should decide
if the entrepreneur gets money, not a visa.

And yes, when a buyer makes an offer on a house, the seller should decide
whether the buyer will get the house, not a visa

None of these people should control whether a person gets to reside in the
united states, and giving them this power is an invitation to government
sponsored abuse.

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kreek
This is a horrible idea, the problem is not that houses are too cheap it's
that they're too expensive.

A better idea would be to relax visa standards for starting a business that
hires x number of americans. Those employees would have a far bigger impact on
the economy as a whole as the majority of their income would be pumped right
back in for basic necessities.

Once they start a business here, guess what? They'll need somewhere to live
and since they're rich they can still buy that $500k+ house.

------
lr
Agree with this or not, this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking members of
Congress need to be doing.

~~~
dalke
Naah. Giving sweet-heart deals to people with a lot of money isn't out-of-the-
box thinking - it's older than the hills. Out-of-box thinking would include
enforcing consumer protection laws, strong oversight of large businesses, and
progressive taxes. That sort of thinking hasn't been so common over the last
few decades.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I think you've been caught up by the current mass hysteria, and forgotten to
look for the reality:

 _enforcing consumer protection laws_

See FTC's web site for news [1] like yesterday's "FTC Stops Nationwide Federal
Jobs Scam".

 _strong oversight of large businesses_

How about the DOJ suing to stop AT&T from acquiring T-Mobile? How about the
absurd suit against Boeing for wanting to build a factory in a state where
they don't have to worry about unions?

 _progressive taxes_

The tax rates vary from 10% up to 35%, as you go up the income scale [2]. So,
there are your progressive taxes.

[1] <http://www.ftc.gov/opa/index.shtml>

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Year_2011_income_brackets_and_tax_rates)

~~~
akg1
_The tax rates vary from 10% up to 35%, as you go up the income scale [2]. So,
there are your progressive taxes._

 _Income_ taxes vary from 10-35%. Payroll taxes vary from ~14% down to
infinitesimal as you go up the income scale, they are _not_ progressive, and
for the people at the bottom end of that 'progressive' scale, they tend to
cost more than income taxes.

It's frustrating that I even have to make this point. Everybody knows about
this, and yet when these discussions happen, it's like payroll taxes don't
exist, or don't count, or somehow or another are not part of the debate. For
that matter, neither are capital gains.

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smattiso
We have to stop spending so much time/energy/money on trying to prop up
housing prices. The valuations were clearly in a bubble. Now that the prices
are more grounded in reality how about letting supply and demand dictate the
prices?

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0x12
$500K minimum? Anything to breathe life into the higher segment of the US real
estate market ;)

Kidding aside, are they also going to retro-actively award visas to all those
that already own their own homes and do not currently have their paperwork in
order? That would be a very quick way to solve another issue that was on the
front page earlier today.

$500K is a bit stiff as a lower limit.

~~~
alex_c
“Applicants can spend the entire amount on one house or spend as little as
$250,000 on a residence and invest the rest in other residential real estate,
which can be rented out,” the paper added.

------
geori
Incentives that rewarded home ownership got us in this quagmire. I hate
lobbyists.

------
tps
Do they realize that there is a sizable number of US citizens living in the
country that would like to buy a home and can afford one but due to the still
artificially inflated prices in some areas of the country that can be
attributed to low rates and the backlog of REO homes are choosing not to buy
yet?

------
IgorPartola
Instead, they should automatically offer work visas to college graduates. It
is such a pain to have to get a work visa after you graduate if you were on an
F1 before then. And most people that come all the way to the US to go to
college are top notch professionals by the time they graduate.

~~~
amritsharma
I was on F1. I think offering work visa to all graduates could not be
justified for the US economy. This would just increase the number of
applicants for all the jobs. Even as of now, there's more supply than demand
for jobs. Although, you're right it would make life so much easier for the
international students.

They could offer fast green card processing to those already working (H1B) in
this country who buy a house worth $150k+.

Good luck.

~~~
IgorPartola
Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify, I am not an international student, and
never was, but I had a number of friends in college that I think would
literally be an asset to this country that went back to their respective
countries of origin. Now, they had reasons other than the visa issues, but I
do wonder how it would have turned out if they were offered the option to
stay.

Yes, this flood the job market with more non-Americans who are competing for
the same jobs. However, we are currently giving out green cards on the basis
of a lottery and not really doing anything to prefer any category of job over
another when making immigration decisions. Using a proven population to
diversify America would be much better than blindly giving out green cards in
a lottery. Another strategy would be to not just automatically hand everyone
an H1B, but instead simply make the process much easier. Or prefer some
industries over others. Or institute a quota and a lottery for just the pool
of interested college grads. Possibilities are endless.

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gopi
I am not sure why many people are upset that this will attract the rich
foreigners. Whats wrong with rich people moving in?. Think how much new tax
revenue the country will gain if 10000 millionaires move every year

~~~
nobody314159
Very little - millionaires tend not to pay much tax. Especially foreign ones
whose income is difficult to trace.

What happened in Vancouver when Canada did the same thing is that people
bought the houses as an insurance so they had an escape route if Honk Kong
went bad. Most of the houses either sat empty, were rented out, or the kid was
dumped there to go to college.

It did a lot for the local housing market - not clear it did quite so much for
local entrepreneurial growth.

~~~
erikj54
That's true in partial. Vancouver has some interesting experiences with
foreign capital investing in the housing market. It makes for a very expensive
city. If the aim of this is to boost the price of the housing market, then I
think this measure will do that. Whether or not that is a good thing is an
entirely different issue.

~~~
nobody314159
Depends if you are a bank sitting on a lot of unsellable fancy property!

------
cbs
$500,000?

The number of people for whom visas are the only barrier to buying a home in
the USA and would spend over 500k on one is probably way too small to have any
real impact on the housing market.

Why not $5k? There are plenty of houses going for dirt cheap in the parts of
the country hit the worst by the recession. It would mean more people taking
advantage of the program and selling that cheap housing would have more of an
impact on the housing market and overall economy.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Because they clearly don't want immigrants from the bottom of the
socioeconomic status of other countries.

~~~
wisty
And they don't want immigrants buying a $5,000 house, then abandoning it to
rent a closet in California.

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sgt
Too bad it must be at least $500,000. The first that came to mind was to buy a
derelict house in Detroit somewhere, and then automatically getting a US visa!

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jellicle
The only beneficiaries I can think of for this program would be rich
capitalists from China and the Middle East who are exporting their gains and
sinking them into foreign property already, and who would now get a fast-track
for immigration as well.

I guess Congress would like to get campaign contributions from these people
(once you have a green card, you can legally make political contributions to
U.S. politicians).

Still waiting for Congress to do something - anything - for people who aren't
millionaires (or indeed, are U.S. citizens).

~~~
hugh3
They're not the _only_ beneficiaries. I can think of a few moderately-wealthy
foreign-born H1Bs (and equivalent) living in Northern California who might
have half a million spare and wouldn't mind buying a $500K house and getting a
free greencard if it'd save them the trouble of going through the usual
immigration process. Picking, just as a random example, say, me.

I'm not even sure whether I want to remain in the US long term, but if offered
a free greencard I'd say yes.

~~~
trevelyan
The direct beneficiaries are American homeowners, who get higher prices for
overvalued assets and financial institutions holding housing as collateral.
The losers are lower-income Americans (often also recent immigrants) for whom
the cost of housing remains out of reach.

~~~
abbasmehdi
Excellent conclusion, David. I have seen this play out in vancouver, british
columbia. Look it up.

------
alex_c
I'm not convinced how effective this will be. The parts in the US where
housing prices took the largest hit are also the parts where a foreigner with
access to USD$500,000 is least likely to want to go in the first place.

------
amritsharma
I'm not sure who will take "advantage" of this program - \- $500,000 CASH
investment \- You get a 'resident visa', so you can not work here Source: WSJ.

How about we give incentives to people already in this country?

I propose: You get priority processing on your green card application if you
buy a house worth more than $150k, and you can't sell for at least 3-5 years.

Disclosure: I'm on the H1B visa. I bought a house last year while the 'first-
time home buyer' $8k credit was available.

------
teyc
This is suited not for entrepreneurs, but wealthy retirees from overseas and
also parents of rich overseas students who want to be with their children.
This is especially if they can show proof of pension income and will not take
up work in the U.S..

However, the US tax laws aren't particularly friendly to the super rich and
wealthy. Once you are deemed resident (I read this from phodgen's blog) then
you have to pay tax on all your income.

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harichinnan
This is the best solution I've heard so far that kills two birds with one
stone. You could create a mini housing bubble thereby solving the unemployment
and also offer a legal route for immigration for hard working folks. This
should also offer a chance of amnesty for all illegal aliens when they buy a
house worth 500,000$. Buy a house and get legal status/amnesty for trespassing
into the country.

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peacemaker
$500,000 to get a visa? Seems to me like Congress is still catering to the
rich.

~~~
adestefan
They already do that with the EB-5 visa. Invest at least $1,000,000 (or
$500,000) and keep 10 jobs in the US and you can live here.

~~~
AlexC04
The E-2 can be had for as little as $100,000

[http://www.h1base.com/visa/work/Compare%20work%20Visas/ref/1...](http://www.h1base.com/visa/work/Compare%20work%20Visas/ref/1133)

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coreyo
Do you see VCs loaning $$ to entreprenuers to buy a home in the US for a visa?

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yummyfajitas
I don't understand - what problem is this supposed to solve?

~~~
adestefan
People that have $500,000+ houses that they need to sell.

~~~
parfe
Banks, not people.

~~~
srdev
People too. There's plenty of people that would like to move to find
employment, but have a mortgage that they need to get out of first. The market
is pretty terrible at the moment, and these people end up being stuck. I know
a few personally.

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Alex3917
It's amazing these people can get away with claiming they don't get what OWS
is about with a straight face.

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recursive
It's not buy a home, it's spend half a mill. That gets about 4 homes 'round
these parts.

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ck2
How about hire 100 US workers for a year, get a free home.

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pitdesi
In case you're looking at this and somehow don't know about
<http://startupvisa.com/> , take a look and offer your support if so inclined.
It would allow non-US entrepreneurs with funding from a US investor to get a
visa to start a company. StartupVisa would be wayyy more beneficial than the
housing thing... get folks to contribute to society, hire local workers, etc.
Those local workers then can in turn buy homes, etc.

~~~
nobody314159
Trouble is that it must be from a US investor.

So it's the same slave labor problem as H1B. If you don't like anything the
investor suggests after you have moved then he withdraws the funding and you
get deported.

Can we think of how a good capitalist VC might use that to their advantage?

~~~
untog
I think you're overstating the issue. I am in the US in an H1B visa and am in
no way 'slave labor'. But I can't start my own company- the Startup Visa would
finally solve that issue.

~~~
nobody314159
There aren't many places where it's considered reasonable that your employer
can fire you for no reason and have you and your family thrown out of the
country aswell.

~~~
h1babuse
Reasonable? No. Does it happen? Yes... Are there business models based upon
this feature? Yes...

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3je9EqJurWo>

[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17855015/Videos/trt-domenic-
romanell...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17855015/Videos/trt-domenic-romanelli-
boss-from-hell.m4v)

------
shareme
okay Senate for sale business as usual..nothing to see here

------
keeptrying
Which other country does this? I think just lessens the appeal of an usa visa
and the USA in general.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Pretty much all of them. Most countries in the world have "investor visas"
which let you buy your way into the country.

