It does make sense but goes against a lot of what people keep repeating. That it's illegal money they want to get out of China and into physical assets. If they want value, they really wouldn't be looking in Vancouver. Victoria would be better bang for the buck.

I guess the main reason why I'm not buying into the idea of foreign money is that people can't seem to agree on some basic things. Whether it's here or not, legal or illegal money, China, Europe or Russian. CBC a few weeks ago even threw out the entire idea and said baby boomers are driving the market. That's a lot of uncertainty and when it comes to investing, I don't like uncertainty. Just the way I am... lol

The house I keep bringing up on Westview does seem fairly priced to me for the area. A pair a few blocks away went for about the same price this guy is asking except they were sold back in 2013. Same big lot subdivided into two Vancouver Special sized homes. Brand new when they were sold

Well, just think of it this way, some of these buyers put down $2-$5M on a property. That's $2-5M that's now into the local market. Which goes to either boomers or speculators or developers who were previously holding that property. That creates a trickle down effect.

Some of the properties on the west side are selling for $10 million + right now. Most locals don’t have that kind of money.

Also I think Edgemont isn’t a place with a lot of Chinese buyers. You need to come down to Richmond, Vancouver, and Burnaby.

Our prices make cities LA or FLorida look dirt cheap. But why go to Vancouver over LA? I don’t know. But due to the high Asian population, access to health care, education, Chinese lawyers, bankers etc, it might be like a second home for them here. Plus it’s relatively close? I’m just speculating here.

What isn’t speculation is that other cities, where real estate has increased to absurd amounts, have collected data that shows that Chinese money is affecting their real estate. So why would it not affect us here, especially since we have a lot of mainland Chinese folks? I mean, we all see those N sign asian drivers with Ferraris everywhere. I’m sure that kid is a CEO of a tech-startup.


UBC housing expert wants more oversight on foreign real estate investment - British Columbia - CBC News

NKC ONE wants a custom built home, large lot (he has a large dog or two), in a specific area. Just the build itself will cost around 800k.

I live in Richmond in the seafair area, I probably get fobby real estate agents ringing my doorbell once or twice a month asking me to sell my lot, promising me way above market value for my place. And literally every week I will get a letter in my mailbox written in chinese or broken ass english from a fob, asking if I am interested in selling lolol

Ive lived in my home for 25 years, and growing up here it does make me sad to see all the local neighbors move out and their houses being torn down and giant mansions being raised. I use to be able to go for a run or walk my dogs around the neighborhood without the fear of being run over, now i got all these fucking fobs ripping it up and down the street in their audi mercs and bmws.

Those multimillion dollar west side properties make great news but really, majority of the population isn't going to look at those at all. It's a very small portion of the market but when one sells, it's all over the news and everyone knows.

Edgemont is just a place I go to for lunch but I don't think it's much different from Whiterock of 10 years ago. Well off area, not a lot of Chinese. With all these complaints of properties purchased and sitting empty, why wouldn't they purchase Edgemont property and let it sit empty? Or any of the other places I drive by?

I rent in Vancouver-Killarney, own in Vancouver-Fraserview, work in North Vancouver. I have family all over Vancouver/Richmond/Burnaby and the lady friend is in New West. I cover most of the lower mainland area to get to where I need to go and I see the same "For Sale" signs day in/day out. It's fairly easy to take a screen shot of the MLS map and compare it to the same map a month later. You can see which ones are sitting stale.

Because it's not convenient to the narrative that Metro Vancouver is no different from other markets and that Metro Vancouver is in general, a shitty place to live and develop your career.

It's naive to believe that foreign money doesn't have an influence here. As I've said before, it's trickled down to all aspects of life in Metro Vancouver. The fancy cars that no person under the age of 30 has business driving, the fact that Mandarin is the lingua franca of Burnaby-Metrotown and Richmond, the rise of anything French in the culinary scene, the expansion of retail luxury stores, etc.

China sent Gregor Robertson's girlfriend here to make this possible.

Another reason I'll be voting against her in the next election. :toot:

^
Can't blame her for being self serving. Higher real estate value = higher property taxes. :thumbs:

Can't blame her after all, she is after property tax oh and her house is most likely 1+million so why would she want her house to lose value and lose revenue.

She is not there for us, only her own pockets.

The only reason Crusty Cunt doesn't give a shxt is, she knows the provincial NDP is too fxxking useless to unseat the Liberals, so she can continue to do whatever dafuq she wants that will line her own pockets and suit her own agenda.

The lack of housing affordability even for the middle class should really have been drummed up into a much bigger issue than it currently is by the NDP. This is something they could ride on to build some votes and support for the next provincial election. But of course, their lack of action shows you how stupid and short sighted they are, and why they still got their a$$es kicked in the last election...

I think this more common than not in Vancouver. Keeping up with the Jones is the easiest way to end up poor......

I sure am glad Clark thinks a city like Vancouver with such low density, no economy, no sustainability, limited career opportunities, and weak earning potentials should be like this. I wouldn't be surprised to see a massive brain drain of talented/high potential workers from Vancouver to Toronto, Seattle, or wherever within 5 years.

Hope you guys enjoy having your economy hinge on restaurants, clothing stores, and jewelry stores while the "successful" people end up working in crappy satellite offices doing reject work! Maybe Vancitybuzz will get one of their unpaid interns to write another garbage article telling us how Vancouver is the hottest tech hub in the world - you know, because HootSuite!

Obviously, I'm exaggerating but you guys get my point.

This. I can't fucking stand Kristy Clown and her idiocy - especially with this latest development that only serves to show how she essentially doesn't give a fuck about Canadians - but at the end of the day, the NDP has the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb in their arsenal (hot button issues like promising to tackle foreign investment, "fix" the housing market and tax/cap the number of empty homes in metropolitan areas) but is refusing to unleash it...

It looks like she is placing her bets that there are more homeowners than non-homeowners who will appear to vote in the next provincial election.

By appeasing to the homeowners by not purposely forcing government intervention to tax foreign buyers, home values do not drop (given that IR does not rise considerably) and home owners are happy.

What we should is focus our attention to the Federal Level and vote for the Federal Party with the most history of racism that will be more incline to heavily tax newly landed wealthy foreigners. Oh wait.. nvr mind... :troll:

I've been trying to get a lot in Fraserview (Vancouver) to hold and build on once my investments pay off and I've basically given up. The average tear down is been listed for $1.3m+, most are selling for $1.5m+. The realtor that I use told me new home prices in the Fraserview area will be $3+ million next year. Unreal.

Yea.... because realtors have historical track record of predicting real estate prices accurately.

Sigh. DansGame

This thread was more fun back in 2012 when it was full of doom and gloom on the Vancouver housing market. How every RS real estate expert here predicted in 2014-15 that Vancouver would suffer some sort of price crash and current homeowners would lose everything except the clothes on their backs. "Buying in Vancouver is a bad move." I remember hearing that back in 2012.

Now the crying is all about foreign ownership and money laundering and how prices are way too high and homes sit empty. Day after day people complain about how this current situation is all Christy's and her liberal gov't fault that no one can buy now, yet these same people passed on home purchases years ago because the media was fearmongering a price drop.


Did anybody on RS not purchase a home back in 2012 because you thought the market would take a shit? Its ok to admit you were wrong now. +1.5mil for a teardown in Fraserview makes me wish I pulled more triggers back in 2012. FailFish

If you know anybody that has access to the realtors mls listing services , you can easily see what’s selling. Just as an example , about a week ago my friend sends me some sales that were sold within two days at that time.

These are properties that have sold way above asking listing around twos of when he sent it to me:

6952 Lanark St. Vancouver. List price (LP) $1,349,900 Sold for $1,465,000
2290 4th Ave E. Vancouver LP $1,249,900, sold for $1,470,000
2651 Triumph LP$1,330,000 sold for $1,460,000
6990 Rupert LP $1,188,888 sold for $1,395,000
3218 E 21st Ave LP $1,299,000 sold for $1,350,000


That’s just a few in east van that sold above asking. There are many others that are selling for $1.2M - $1.4 Million and got around list price. Most are tear downs or older homes. . . . . good luck trying to afford a house in Vancouver.

"housewife" buys $8 million dollar house. There's a screenshot/link of the MLS listing if you click on the article.

Slightly expensive housing market: Vancouver home sells for more than $2 million above listed price | National Post

I've been lurking this forum for many years but never been compelled to post until now.

I hope anyone calling for government action to restrict or tax foreign ownership aren't the same ones complaining about the absurdity of raising the min wage rates to $15/hr post a few posts back. Because in the end it's the exact same thing. Government intervention and wealth transfer from one group to another and not letting the free market work as it should.

So hopefully everyone calling for this tax to foreign owners is also calling for a raise of minimum wage to $15.
Or else it would be quite hypocritical to demand one type of government intervention and be upset at another.

Interesting... I assume the person paying for the property is from China and this is his way of getting his money out of the country, but not putting his name on the title so that he can claim that he doesn't own anything. But to put his wife/partner as the sole owner, she can divorce the guy and keep the house!

>70% home ownership in Canada, highest it's ever been (read into that what you will) - she's just pandering to the voting majority.

woah. applying first year econ too literally here eh

The point of the foreign-ownership tax is to make foreigners bear the deadweight loss created by government intervention while domestic citizens benefit from affordable prices.

Minimum wage is a different matter because hyper-inflating the cost to employers would do more harm to all of domestic consumers including the min-wagers in the long run.

Gregor's house was sold yesterday by my friend

List price 1.78M; Sold price 1.98M;