Originally Posted by diesel_test (Post 7963100)

Younger buyers can use their family/parents income help too.

Originally Posted by jasonturbo (Post 7964876)

It boggles my mind that you believe foreign buyers are playing a big factor without having any actual data to justify the statement.

Foreign buying only gets heat out here in Vancouver, so explain what is happening in the GTA, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, St. Johsn, and every other Canadian city that has seen RE jump in value over the last decade.

It's not foreign buyers, it's simply relaxing lending standards to a point that anyone can get a mortgage, long amoritization periods and bare minimum interest rates, those are the key issues here. Allowing Canadian consumers to sink themselves into levels of debt never seen before.

There are MANY people that I know who bought a house before the boom, saw it appreciate 100k, took that 100k of equity and got a Heloc just to have a down payment for another property... or two, with plans to flip those houses. Ordinary people were turning into speculative buyers and flippers and that really put pressure on prices.

There is no statistics to support that foreign buyers are driving the market, at least none that I have ever been able to find.

What's sad is the "basement rental disease" that has struck the lower mainland, in order for many people to qualify for a mortgage, even with a 35 year term at variable rate of next to nothing was by having a basement rental listed as part of their income, many times more than they would actually take in from a tenant.

I don't want to own a house if I have to share it with someone... but that's just me.