The United States is the land of the free but our freedoms should be for tax paying citizens. I want to be clear and say I believe any free tax paying citizen should be able to own land but that should be limited to peoples of the land and tax payers. Foreign countries, entities and non-permanent residents should be prohibited from owning land within our borders. It is not only an economic issue but an obvious national security issue.
An obvious exemption are embassies.
International entities that have a headquarters here in the US and abroad should have to undergo an audit before being allowed to purchase any land. Any such entity could always lease privately instead.
I would make an exception for personal home ownership for non-citizens. But definitely, no foreign government should own property in the US and they should not control any infrastructure like docks, airports, farms, etc.
I don’t agree with this exception. It could easily be exploited for the purpose of nefarious activities. In other countries, they have other solutions to this exception. I would support the idea exception that a non-citizen can own the house but must lease the land from a citizen.
The mitigating factor here is the owner being physically present - meaning they can be held directly accountable for any nefarious activities.
A significant improvement over the ownership-from-a-distance we currently have in the investment property model for both foreign and domestic investors.
There are non-citizens that live in the United States long term, like those who work for international organizations like NATO, UN, World Bank, embassies, etc, and also non-citizens who are on the path to citizenship which takes 5+ years. They should be able to purchase a home as a personal investment. I don’t agree that they purchase property to rent to Americans, but if it is their personal home, I think its necessary that they be able to purchase property.