Quick question:
What do locals have against buying condos and/or townhouses? The prices on those have risen, but not at an insane pace.
When you go to places like Europe or Latin America, you ain't gonna get a house on a huge lot *anywhere* close to the downtown core of any reasonably large city.
I was actually thinking back to my time in Brazil; Rio is a super dense city. Everybody who lives in the touristy areas, or in the areas close to downtown, lives in a condo, or, if they're really lucky, a "vila" (basically a mini townhouse complex):
https://www.google.ca/maps/@-22.9209...7i13312!8i6656
I lived for most of my life in that house, number 12. Note how there's no backyard, huge acreage, etc. Mind you, this house was around 45 minutes to an hour by bus from downtown. If we wanted to live in a large house, it would have been $$$$$$. If we wanted to live in a large house, say, in Copacabana, we couldn't because they didn't exist lol
I honestly believe that a potential solution for the current housing issues is to densify. There is no other way. Vancouver is now a "world class city". Guess what? You ain't buying a half acre lot close to downtown (or hell, even 45 minutes from downtown) in any of these cities Vancouver compares itself to unless you're filthy rich! And in many cases, those lots don't even exist.
What it seems to me is that people want to continue to live the lifestyle that their parents had, but not realizing that the city has changed and there's no going back.
tl;dr there's a lot of people who feel entitled to buy a single family house. Go look at condos or townhomes instead.