Living with Parents

[Catfish Alley]

You have better rules for that than here. Foreign investment is an especially big problem in this city. They are talking about following the Australian model.

 

[Gough]

You have better rules for that than here. Foreign investment is an especially big problem in this city. They are talking about following the Australian model.

Seems like that's always been a problem. The first time I visited Vancouver was in 1994, and they were all bitching about rich Hong Kong families buying up over there to get out before the Chinese took over then.

 

[The_Reaper]

Seems like that's always been a problem. The first time I visited Vancouver was in 1994, and they were all bitching about rich Hong Kong families buying up over there to get out before the Chinese took over then.

At least those guys were planning on immigrating to Vancouver.

A lot of the purchases now are away to get money out of their home country and store in a different currency in an investment that is likely to hold value (and property prices have held up very well).

It's more because they're concerned about the Chinese Yuan and the Chinese economy in the future (or Malaysia/Indonesia whatever) and want to keep their wealth secure. You can do that with houses but otherwise there are restrictions on the amount of money you can move out of a country to put in a bank in a different country.

Some like my family back in the day smuggled cash on airplanes flights to Melbourne but that isn't feasible anymore and even back in the 70s carried a lot of risks

 

[Catfish Alley]

It's pretty ridiculous at the moment. The price for a stand-alone house in Vancouver and Burnaby is well over a million. My suburb is the next one out and prices are getting close to that point. We bought our place at a good time but I have friends that really are going to have to move to the fringe of Greater Vancouver to afford anything. Prices increased by about 35% in a couple of years. The concern is that at this rate, most of Vancouver will eventually be a playground for the rich or empty homes owned by people overseas.