China's Millionaire Migration

[blankall]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

I don't think we're going to agree on much, if you don't think increasing density is a solution. We need to look more like London, England, and less like Calgary, in order to get more people into the city. People want to live here, for a multitude of reasons. If you don't increase the density, and give them increased transit to get around town, the price continue to rise. You are right that it's like a first year economics situation, but you want to remove supply from that equation? That, and the terrible Globe article you quoted, assume the rising costs will disappear without increasing supply doesn't make sense. I read it when it came out, and it's been easily debunked.

Too many people are putting the blame on developers, Rennie, and Robertson. Let's suppose the NPA gets in power, and stifles developers from building condos. People still want to move here. How will this lower prices? SFHs continue to decrease, as they are converted to mult-unit dwellings. Since this decreases the amount of supply, the prices will continue to go up for land. That's, once again, first year economics.

I think the bigger problem in Vancouver is the median wage. London, England is expensive to live, but the wages are much higher. The vast majority of people there live in multi-unit housing. There is more density, and places are smaller. This is what Vancouver needs to strive for, both in terms of wages, and accommodations.

I'm not saying there isn't illegal foreign money coming to Vancouver. I am saying that the figures being portrayed in the media are vast hyperbole. There was a new building that was reported to have 85% foreign ownership. As someone who got to see the purchaser list, I can tell you it is false. It was about 7%. Many people are blaming the Chinese for buying up all the properties. It's inherently racist to say that. I could go on about that for pages on end, but the simple fact is just because someone is Chinese, doesn't mean they are bringing in illegal cash. Even the Andy Yan paper was taken by the media to mean all buyers are foreigners, when that wasn't what actually happened, or was said by Yan.

I do enjoy the bubble talk. People act like it's new and it's the first time Vancouver's had one. You can literally find over 30 years of articles on it, but yeah, you're definitely right about it this time, people.

Even if it was 7%, i think you are vastly underestimating the impact of 7% ownership on a real estate market.

Also how did you judge who was and who wasn't a foreign buyer? Did you look for ethnic names? Addresses? Occupation? Where money was being transferred from. None of those stats would tell you anything. A major issue is foreign buyers disguising purchases via planted relatives. You do know that China is a communist country. No one is supposed to be taking the amounts of money these guys are taking out. So they are going to go to great lengths to launder and disguise the money, yet you know something that the Chinese government doesn't?

As for bubble talk, when Vancouver is compared with places like San Francisco and NYC, which have experienced stalls and drops, Vancouver just seems bizarre. Just up and up.

The issue is basically that Canada has almost no restrictions to foreign ownership. This makes Canada a very easy target. Australia has restrictions on foreign ownership of new properties. Most US states force foreign owners to hire a local management company. Canada has nothing, and we're a rarity in the world.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by peter12

Oh because Vancouver realtors have been so forthcoming with the facts...

Didn't you just spend a 2 topics defending generalizations against your religion?
I guess painting with broad strokes is good as long as you're behind the brush.

[peter12]

Haha, oh please.

[peter12]

I would never say you don't have a right to make a buck as a realtor in Vancouver, but don't pretend that your industry isn't rife with cheats, swindlers and crooks. You may be different. Heck, I don't know you and far be it from me to make a judgement on how you conduct your own affairs, but we can stop with the lawyer jokes and start telling knee-slippers about realtors as far as I am concerned.

[sun]

I was working in a home being listed for $22 million dollars the other week. Realtor said "just waiting for the right student to come along to buy it", which I thought was funny.

There was a unit for sale in my building, 1.5 blocks away from Hastings and Main. I see people shooting up and smoking crack on a nearly daily basis. Couple days ago, someone in the alley was stabbed in the leg. Another resident said "oh I already called 911, don't worry about it". As if she got that one and I'll get the next one. I saw a dead body in the alley. Or rather, a body covered with a sheet, circled by police tape.

So, this unit for sale in my building... it was listed at $1000/square foot. Nearly half a million dollars and it doesn't even come with a bedroom. It's no longer listed, so I assume it sold... probably over asking. My buddy in real estate figures the units in the building across the street have gone up 300% since the presale ~three years ago. Why?

I am certainly not a NIMBY. I don't own a house. I don't oppose density or condos. I am a "young" "creative" who can't afford to buy a 500 square foot bachelor pad in the downtown east side. Not Kits, not Kerrisdale, not Olympic Village - the DTES.

Hong Kong is one of the most expensive cities in the world, a colonial city largely built upon real estate speculation. 3/4 of its population lives in subsidized housing. There needs to be some benefit to the city, province, country if this is going to continue.

Another anecdote to add to the pile - my friends are moving. My friend in tech is moving. I meet people on a daily basis for my job who are selling their homes for more than they would ever dream of and at least half are moving to a) Victoria or b) the interior.

Rennie is a great man, but very clearly has a rather massive bias in this matter and his opinion should be taken with a metric butt-tonne of salt.

It's totally and utterly whack out there. Quite disheartening for someone who loves the city and who will eventually be shunted aside.

[FireGilbert]

Things in Sydney are just as bad but at least Australia has some restrictions on foreign ownership.

It is unfortunate the young middle class are being priced out of the market at the expense of profits for developers. Damn the consequences I am really hoping the bubble will burst.

[flylock shox]

I think the girl in the video summed it up pretty well: Vancouver is between China and Canada. For a wealthy Chinese person it has everything. Clean air, water, and natural surroundings. Great exchange rate getting better all the time. Stable, democratic country. Minimal barriers to entry. Great investment in addition to being a great way to move large sums of money. High Chinese population already. Direct flights to most major Asian cities.

There is no bubble in Vancouver. It's only going to go up and up from here. Not at its present rate, but consistently, as it has for the past 15 years or so. And Vancouver will become a city of young professionals and oligarchs. Schools will close. New ones will open up in Surrey where families actually live. Businesses will move into the Valley to better accommodate their employees and avoid the insane rents.

It's all predictable and it's part and parcel of being an international Pacific Rim city. People are just going to have to figure out whether it's worth it to them to live here.

[Flamenspiel]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Speaking of condo construction, this is Montreal. It's crazy, and getting worse not better°Still building at an even greater rate, it seems to me:

Condos are not doing that well in Toronto either. In any case most of the Toronto increases have been in lockstep with the CAD depreciation in the last few years, they have not increased that much in US dollar terms.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by flylock shox

I think the girl in the video summed it up pretty well: Vancouver is between China and Canada. For a wealthy Chinese person it has everything. Clean air, water, and natural surroundings. Great exchange rate getting better all the time. Stable, democratic country. Minimal barriers to entry. Great investment in addition to being a great way to move large sums of money. High Chinese population already. Direct flights to most major Asian cities.

There is no bubble in Vancouver. It's only going to go up and up from here. Not at its present rate, but consistently, as it has for the past 15 years or so. And Vancouver will become a city of young professionals and oligarchs. Schools will close. New ones will open up in Surrey where families actually live. Businesses will move into the Valley to better accommodate their employees and avoid the insane rents.

It's all predictable and it's part and parcel of being an international Pacific Rim city. People are just going to have to figure out whether it's worth it to them to live here.

Dude. I am a young professional. I make over the median income for my age. My wife is going to the best law school outside of Toronto. We won't be able to buy here ever.

It will be a city for oligarchs and their servants until nothing is left.

People forget that London, Sydney, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco etc... all have a high-paying sector that exists outside of real estate. That is how people can actually afford to live there.

[flylock shox]

Originally Posted by peter12

Dude. I am a young professional. I make over the median income for my age. My wife is going to the best law school outside of Toronto. We won't be able to buy here ever.

It will be a city for oligarchs and their servants until nothing is left.

People forget that London, Sydney, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco etc... all have a high-paying sector that exists outside of real estate. That is how people can actually afford to live there.

I hear you. Most of my friends are lawyers. Few of them own. Those that do (or could) would be looking at 1 or 2 bedroom shoeboxes in the sky. Houses are a pipe dream.

But for an investor from China, the market here is still ridiculously cheap. There is no disincentive to buy. And so the prices will continue to rise until there's an earthquake here, or interest rates quadruple, or China suffers a severe recession (and even in that latter case, it might lead to more buyers trying to secure their money on the Canadian coast).

And it's not just the wealth of many foreign buyers, it's the sheer number of them. We've only seen a drop from the much larger bucket so far. There is a whole growing industry aimed at facilitating these foreign purchases.

Vancouver will become a city of rich property owners, and low-income to middle class renters. But it's a lifestyle city, and young people will always pay to live here, even if it's only renting, and only for their 20s.

But hey: there's always Kelowna.

[burn_this_city]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/why-v...kids-1.2954707

[chrishenry]

The challenge is that with completely open borders, regarding investment, wealthier people in foreign countries that don't have confidence in their ability to invest their capital in their own domestic market will seek foreign alternatives. Canada is a foreign alternative to wealthy Chinese investors who either want to invest their money or hide their money.

The challenge for us is that our relationship with the Chinese is asymetrical. While we allow foreign investment from China openly, the same cannot be said for the reverse.

Moreover, fair or not, if our domestic market is in fact more attractive than the chinese domestic market, we could and are being priced out of our own homes, given our domestic earning power.

[troutman]

[comment section - everyone calls BS]

Preliminary government data on Vancouver home sales says less than five percent go to foreign nationals

While the study has shortcomings, its findings on the role of foreign nationals in B.C. real estate are in line with a number of previous estimates

http://www.straight.com/news/733211/...ent-go-foreign

The percentage of home sales that went to foreign nationals across all of Metro Vancouver was 5.1 percent. For B.C., it was three percent.

The data looked at 10,148 transactions. Of those, it found that 258, or 2.54 percent, went to Chinese citizens. Of foreign nationals, Americans came in second with 0.23 percent of purchases, and citizens of the United Kingdom came in third, with 0.10 percent.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by troutman

Preliminary government data on Vancouver home sales says less than five percent go to foreign nationals

While the study has shortcomings, its findings on the role of foreign nationals in B.C. real estate are in line with a number of previous estimates

http://www.straight.com/news/733211/...ent-go-foreign

The percentage of home sales that went to foreign nationals across all of Metro Vancouver was 5.1 percent. For B.C., it was three percent.

The data looked at 10,148 transactions. Of those, it found that 258, or 2.54 percent, went to Chinese citizens. Of foreign nationals, Americans came in second with 0.23 percent of purchases, and citizens of the United Kingdom came in third, with 0.10 percent.

There is no way to realistically track who is foreign and who is not. Chinese citizens are limited to taking $50k out of the country per year. Yet some are buying multimillion dollar properties. If they can hide it from the Chinese government, who I'm sure would come down very hard on any one that's caught, they can hide it from us.

[peter12]

Even a 5% increase of multi-millionaire owners entering a market like Vancouver would have an adverse effect on driving the price ceiling up. Add in a completely unscrupulous real estate industry, low interest rates, boomers cashing out on an unplanned but welcome asset, and panicked under 40s getting in at any cost, well that is a bubble.

[peter12]

Yeah, really hard to say who is a foreign buyer. The Chinese government is cracking down on capital outflows.

[Muffins]

Originally Posted by troutman

[comment section - everyone calls BS]

Preliminary government data on Vancouver home sales says less than five percent go to foreign nationals

While the study has shortcomings, its findings on the role of foreign nationals in B.C. real estate are in line with a number of previous estimates

http://www.straight.com/news/733211/...ent-go-foreign

The percentage of home sales that went to foreign nationals across all of Metro Vancouver was 5.1 percent. For B.C., it was three percent.

The data looked at 10,148 transactions. Of those, it found that 258, or 2.54 percent, went to Chinese citizens. Of foreign nationals, Americans came in second with 0.23 percent of purchases, and citizens of the United Kingdom came in third, with 0.10 percent.

The period of analysis was short, consisting of just 19 days from June 10 to 29

A whole 19 days!

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Muffins

A whole 19 days!

And it's all self-reported data. Ladies and gentlemen, the BC Liberals.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by flylock shox

I think the girl in the video summed it up pretty well: Vancouver is between China and Canada. For a wealthy Chinese person it has everything. Clean air, water, and natural surroundings. Great exchange rate getting better all the time. Stable, democratic country. Minimal barriers to entry. Great investment in addition to being a great way to move large sums of money. High Chinese population already. Direct flights to most major Asian cities.

There is no bubble in Vancouver. It's only going to go up and up from here. Not at its present rate, but consistently, as it has for the past 15 years or so. And Vancouver will become a city of young professionals and oligarchs. Schools will close. New ones will open up in Surrey where families actually live. Businesses will move into the Valley to better accommodate their employees and avoid the insane rents.

It's all predictable and it's part and parcel of being an international Pacific Rim city. People are just going to have to figure out whether it's worth it to them to live here.

Don't be foolish, it's huge freaking bubble, mostly because the Chinese that are buying the houses have little experience of real estate markets, we tend to forget there only been allowed to own property in China for a reletively short time, they like you, just assume the markets always go up, it won't, it'll pop, the market will drop five or ten percent, the Chinese will freak out, it will then drop thirty or fourty percent in a few months.

All markets drop eventually but most older mainland Chinese investors haven't really ever seen this.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Muffins

A whole 19 days!

Well they wanted to do thirty but then a bunch of Chinese dudes bought houses on the last day and the percentage hit around fifteen and that didn't work, so they dropped the first five days and cut the last six and it just about gets the average down.