With respect to detached homes in Metro Vancouver, I'm not sure if you understand the traditional "Asian" mentality about land. The reason why the whole flipping/assignment thing has blown up over the last couple of weeks is that there is someone who is willing to pay an overinflated price for a house. And that buyer is typically Chinese. I would imagine that the typical mainland Chinese buyer would rather preserve wealth in a house or land because Canada has laws to protect that land/house from sudden seizure or expropriation. Property rights have no history in China and the concept is largely novel, unlike in Europe and North America. For the typical investor, housing is a commodity like any other, but for the Chinese investor, housing in a country with the rule of law is a safe way to preserve wealth.

haha yes of course, i probably should've noted that, especially after seeing all the comments sections, with people up in arms and claiming that they'll be depositing their money underneath their mattresses :lol

Nothing is going to happen unless there is government intervention.

I'd tend to agree.

Without severe restrictions placed on whatever is "inflating" the prices, whether that be foreign ownership etc. nothing is going to change.

And even with restrictions placed, you don think people who can buy 1.5-20 million dollar homes can eventually immigrate legally?

Vancouver is a completely unique situation to the rest of the world. This isn't taiwan, HK, etc as people so often compare. The draw of Vancouver so heavily outweighs basically anywhere in the world for the groups coming here, nothing but severe restrictions, which this government will almost certainly never implement will change anything.

People can go on about "better places eslewhere" those "better" places are changing overnight with floods of refugees and are stoll, for the most part, as expensive if not moreso than van.

As someone who is hoping to buy their first place this year I'm incredibly frustrated and looking further and further away from the Lowermainland. People's salaries in relation to whats out there is completely unrealistic. :\

/end rant

I also had the same issue growing frustrated looking further and further out, my problem is i was looking 2 years ago at detached homes for 700k, those homes are now over 1 mill. I finally bite the bullet alittle further out than i would like and bought a duplex for close to a million :drunk:
Boy did i fuck up

You call it a fuck up now until later this year you find out it's worth 1.5mil haha #pray

2-3 years ago I looked at a house for sale in Vancouver for 1.25mil. I believe the junk houses in that area are selling for 3+ now. The one I looked at was just built, brand new.

The problem we're seeing is that they purchase and leave it vacant. It's fine if they buy and live here, but Vancouver is an asset parking lot for the rich. Look at Coal Harbour and all the schools shutting down...

Buying a $3 million dollar home in some shit ass area in east Vancouver is absolutely absurd but it's even more absurd to live on two levels of your house while you rent both your basements and coach home so you can use the money to pay 1/3 of your mortgage. Ridiculous.

MLA says he can?t afford to live in Vancouver, and neither should you | Metro News

^ This guy

:fuckthatshit:

By his logic, if we all move out to Chilliwack / Agassiz / Hope area, the jobs will follow. By my logic, you best guarantee would be working in fast food.

Hey VR6GTI, in which area did you buy your duplex? My friend bought his duplex in the Royal Oak area last year for just under a million, and this year alone, his duplex value is already up $200k. It's a new duplex if that makes a difference.

Duplex in Royal Oak area for over a million?? BrokeBack

If my theoretical duplex went up $500k in a year, I'd sell, pocket the $500k less costs, and rent until the market corrects itself.

$500k is many, many years of rent

Id like to know what sort of work all these new buyers are in though, to be able to afford a mortgage for a $1.5m+ home, there doesn't seem to be enough jobs offering $225k+ a year income, or even 112.5k+ (for a couple)... or are a lot of these buyers just qualifying for mortgages thanks to shady brokers, and the rest are renting out rooms

The Vancouver market won't correct itself as long as the Chinese economy is going strong. Alot of people in Vancouver rode the rollercoaster, sold their houses in 2007 and made some mad $$$. The plan was to wait it out when prices dip below, and buy another property. Except it never happened, property prices shot up and kept going strong. So those people were left with good sums of $$$ in their bank accounts, but it's not enough to buy in to the market again without significantly downsizing.

I can't speak for all, but I hear of alot of people running mortgages on their 2.5m+ home. They do it as a way to launder money, alot of it from restaurant businesses in Richmond. If they were to stash up the $$$ in the bank, problems would arise, so by mortgaging, they manipulate it in their best interest.

according to this article, they are all housewives and students:

In a six-month period, 70% of detached homes sold in Vancouver?s west side went to Mainland China buyers

i hate to post anything with that fucking clown david eby in it, but seems to be some actual research behind the findings

What is this so called draw that you can't find anywhere else in the world. I mean you keep saying Vancouver is some sugar plum fairyland, but you haven't pointed out how it is "better" than every other city in the world.

Do keep in mind that a city with high property prices needs the same high personal incomes to support the prices. Basic fundamentals.

2009-2010 the market slumped pretty bad in Vancouver. I remember the neighbourhood near the BC children's hospital was going for $1.6M-1.8M and 2bed yaletown was going for $550K-630K

This is Vancouver housing we are talking about. Basic fundamentals do not apply here!

#1 is Schools i'd say, creating a better life for your family from elsewhere starts from the ground up. Private schools amongst the best in the nation, and excellent public schools in the areas people want to buy.

#2 environment. Social, geographical, fiscal, etc. are for the most part, all massive improvements for the foreigners moving here.

#3 Government. A lax government seen as a tax haven where people can store their cash for a rainy day. Again, these people arent people who have a few hundred thousand in equity and are coming here for a new life, these are people with 10's of millions of dollars at their disposal.

on top of that, free health care and access to great private health care, social assistance, open market on banking, business, finances, etc.

#4 Freedom. Moving from Mainland China and other parts of the world, where would you get this libertarian, laid back, not having to look over your shoulder environment? As many of these articles on mainland china buying up the housing market have outlined, the reality of total autonomy over your own private, rightfully owned, property in China is a pipe dream, even for the insanely wealthy.

#5 acceptance. The Chinese and other races coming to Canada and Vancouver especially probably feel about as welcomed as you're going to get in a foreign country. I took the skytrain to metrotown the other weekend and had to walk to kingsway through the mall.. on the skytrain bridge filled with probably 120+ people, i'm pretty sure i was the only white person there. in the middle of the evening rush on a Friday. Didnt think much of it, as it's pretty common now a days to be the minority.. but as an immigrant.. it must feel pretty good to fit right in the second you step off the plane..

Sure, there's plenty of places all over North America with similar cultural diversity, but in the states, and even back east, there is definitely a bigger "red neck" quota, and far less general acceptance than there is here. When the biggest "racism" story to come out is some retarded 12 year olds writing "muzlims go back to wer you came frum" on a high school wall, i'd say you're pretty safe to carry on your business as usual, and for most people, act and conduct yourself exactly the way you're used to back in China.

Then after all those factors you get get into the minutiae of the lower mainland, in the beauty, accessibility, climate, location, proximity to the states, proximity to the far east, etc. etc. etc.

I know 4444 liked to chime in regarding "better" places to live earlier in the thread, presumably living abroad in Germany. However, was noticeably absent in the thread regarding the mass sexual assaults happening in his adopted country as a result of the mass exodus of Syrian refugees.

As of last i heard, over a million Syrian refugee's admitted into Germany, essentially the heart and engine of Europe.. How very attractive..

I always see in the comments section of all these housing crisis articles, the typical 22-35 year old commenting "lol.. who wants to live here anyways.. so many better places to live"

so.. you're basing that on that one month you spent on a contiki tour in italy?

Dont get me wrong, absolutely there are better places to live in this world for each individual. Different places offer different things. People feel more at home in other places, or they suit their personalities better, terrific.

However, to kind of dismiss Vancouver as some hyped up, over inflated balloon which is going to burst and nothing will ever be the same is just ignorant.

In terms of North America, this is it for me. I've never lived anywhere other than Vancouver, but I've traveled fairly extensively throughout Canada and the US. The West coast is already done, south of the border, no thanks, you're taking Vancouver over anything below us. Perhaps little niche neighborhoods in SoCal or something, sure, but again, there are 2000 sq foot ranchers in Sacramento going for $800,000..

Eastern seaboard of the states somewhat intrigues me, but the East coast in General is a completely different vibe and people. At this point in my life, i'm not one to completely change who i am in order to work my way into the social norm. So thats off the list.

So.. We get going across oceans now.. because obviously i'm not going south of the US border, further south you go the less your life is worth until you're getting kidnapped for your iphone.. so yea..

In terms of living, lets start by throwing everything else besides Europe out the window. While moving to SE Asia would be

-Cheap
-Relatively Easy
-Lots of English there
-etc etc.

lets be real, for the most part the majority of the people who live in these countries, live and act as third worlders do. Overall, nothing there is an upgrade.

So.. Back to Europe..

for me, it begins and ends with this "migrant crisis" And i'm sure as hell glad i've spent extensive time in Europe prior to all this shit, because I have a picture in my head of what some of these places are going to look like when i return, and it's not a pretty picture. in 2014 Southern France and the French/Italian riviera already had a noticeable population of African migrants, from beggars, to drug users, they were quite evident in most places, and that included the non-tourist type stops along the tracks.

I'll give the Scandinavian countries the benefit of the doubt, as most limited their refugee intake, and most were already in quite good shape, great countries, great people, great culture, the only downside is it's dark 7 months of the year and you want to blow your brains out before it's half way through.

The only place i've ever been that i even remotely entertained the idea of living in was Switzerland. Truly a peoples utopia. The cleanest, most efficient, safest, place i've ever traveled to. However, again we are getting into huge $$$ for living, and the taxes and incomes reflect how clean and industrious the Swiss are. So have fun uprooting and making a living there.

Hmm.. seems like we've come back full circle.. Seems pretty nice here sitting at my computer rolling up a joint and cracking a beer, watching the Canucks game with my feet up... you know, not having to worry about secret police busting down my door and seizing my assests.. or getting gang raped by sryians on the walk to safeway..

pretty nice indeed..

Well for number 1... just google best private schools in the world and nothing in Vancouver shows up for me. Graduating from Canadian Universities have no clout in the business world.

Number 2: Well if you're gonna compare Canada with the shitstain that is Mainland China or India, then even Antarctica will look pretty rosy.

Number 3: If you want tax havens, go to Hong Kong where there is zero Capital gains taxes

Number 4: Switzerland beats Canada yet again.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

If you're going to only talk about the good, why not talk about the bad as well. How about the DTES right next to the downtown core, with the biggest concentration of drug addicts in the world? Heck, they're so good that they shoot up right outside the police station on Main St. You sure you're not gonna get gangraped when you walk down a dark alley there? How about the lovely streets of Surrey at night. Vancouver has a completely absent night-life present in every big city.

Sure you get free healthcare, but why do these immigrants care when they're loaded? Surely this is actually a downside because they can no longer pay to skip the queue. I am not sure where you were able to find this underground black market private healthcare in Vancouver. Please do tell me so I can report it to the proper authorities.

Oh yea, you still haven't addressed the financial fundamentals required to support such a strong market.

Nightlife and the DTES.. great counter-arguments.

the DTES is like.. 4X4 blocks.. if that..

it's laughable that people think the DTES is the worst of anything, its fucking FOUR BLOCKS..

yea, places like LA, New York, Vegas etc. with 10-20 times the population have a wayyy better "skid row" lol.. come on.

Streets of Surrey? fuck i'll walk through Whalley 100 times out of 100 over walking through popular areas of Seattle at night. Again, "streets of surrey"

you mean that like, one road behind the church parallel to king george between 104 and 108th? lol CRAZY!

Switzerland, great place, but like i said before.. where is it "affordable" ?

Bern, which presumably has one of the higher concentrations of real-estate, $600,000 CAD can get you this:

https://www.engelvoelkers.com/imgs/5...-SLIDESHOW.jpg

https://www.engelvoelkers.com/ch/emm...ge=en&elang=de

Good luck getting citizenship in switzerland unless you can prove you have a degree/job that actually benefits the swiss people.

Why not just come out towards White Rock or Langleyish? Can get a great water view condo for just under a million and it's only 30ish minutes to Vancouver. Not to mention that the property taxes are cheaper and don't have to deal with crazy traffic (or too many Asian drivers).

Prices will continue to rise in Vancouver until the Government finally realizes that all of Vancouver is foreign people and that all the young people (primary workers) don't live in the city anymore thus making it harder for businesses to run since they won't have any 16 year olds to work for minimum wage.

And for everyone saying that this is just a bubble and such. Think about this, our dollar right now is complete sh*t and will stay that way for at least a couple years now so this "bubble" will be around as long as our dollar is low.

At least this is my opinion on this whole mess. Shame to see what's happened to Vancouver. Only a matter of time until this all comes tumbling back down the Government's throat.