Chinese Investors Driving Up Metro Housing Prices

[WarrenC12]

Finally Vin and I mostly agree...

I would argue that the city is changing zoning for densification, but it just needs to go faster. What is happening along Cambie should be happening simultaneously across other arterials.

And why is something like Oakridge taking forever?

[a very long weekend]

Originally Posted by Caliplanner1

It's kind of ironic that the urban sprawl of my city, Los Angeles, has made low density housing affordable and enjoyable. I do enjoy coming home (5 minutes from work) to a nice big backyard/swimming pool and privacy.

I am now starting to seriously reconsider my attraction to Vancouver as a "livable city" with all this increasing density or overcrowding/loss of quiet suburban privacy towards increasing urban congestion/noise within the context of higher housing prices etc.!

man, look around you. low housing density single family homes are not affordable in los angeles these days unless you're living in east los angeles. the reason? not enough housing stock. it's simple.

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

man, look around you. low housing density single family homes are not affordable in los angeles these days unless you're living in east los angeles. the reason? not enough housing stock. it's simple.

You obviously don't know Los Angeles. I live in the relatively affordable San Fernando Valley which is officially a part of the City of L.A.! Obviously I wouldn't expect a new graduate/kid coming out of college to be able to buy a house here but a money wise/prudent mid life/level professsional surely can. My house could easily sell for $3-4 million in Vancouver..........many times its value here in L.A.!

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by st7860

In the end there are only 42 thousand or so single family homes in vancouver and more are being lost every year. No matter what the conservatives or liberals have done there are still over 200 thousand people coming to Canada per year the bulk of which go to vancouver , Toronto , and Montreal . Basically there's not enough houses to go around

More are being lost every year to high-rises and greater density. Take a walk along East Vancouver lanes. Almost EVERY single new construction has two suites ( minimum ) in the basement + 1 laneway home. The SFH, I agree is disappearing. These large detached buildings are more like mini-apartments.

Fair point about there being 20,000 construction starts for the year ( slowing down, too... I wonder why ).

Yes, 300k come to Canada. As was stated before, 30k come to BC, approximately 20k to Metro Vancouver: From Langley to Lion's Bay. Langley and Surrey are growing faster than Vancouver and have lots of space left.

North Burnaby is converting commercial areas into high-rises and has lots of space left. There haven't been empty lots in Vancouver since the 70s, yet it's only recently that prices have skyrocketed. A mortgage was cheaper than rent in the 90s assuming you had a down payment. You could still manage to buy a SFH in Vancouver as a starter home in 2005 if you were middle-class.

Immigration and Investors are a SMALL piece of the puzzle when it comes to high real-estate prices. And remember, real-estate prices have been going up in parallel across the country in the last decade. Sure, they haven't been going up as FAST as Vancouver, but it's not as if some massive trickle-down Chinese investor effect is causing 25-year old SFHs in Hope to command prices like $460k.

Prices have escalated primarily because of cheap debt, lax lending policies and a lack of real data. When you don't have the real data, the numbers are open to manipulation.

The media feeds on it and regurgitates it. This convinces the public that the causes are external because no one want to blame themselves. No one who just paid too much for a house wants to believe that they paid too much for a house. It feels so much more comfortable to believe in the Chinese boogeyman, come to buy all our houses is keeping prices high.

Remember the Asians who took a yellow helicopter out to check out Richmond real estate? Headline news. Remember it turning out that the 'passengers' were just other real estate agents from Burnaby and Richmond? An elaborate ploy by a real-estate agency to seed fear to the media. And perhaps using that clip to further their interests in China where they were legitimately using the same tactics to convince some Chinese to come to Vancouver and buy property.

Remember the local Chinese girls who were buying a property for their parents. Ended up being "MAC Marketing" employees. Oops. How many of these seeded stories NEVER get found out?

Why isn't the data released? It's not as if it doesn't exist. According to the radio yesterday, you can request, for $7, the history of any property through a realtor.

Why can't this be made public without an agent. This data is what allows sites like Zillow to offer their amazing service south of the border. Load up Blaine or Bellingham in Zillow and check out the data that we COULD have in Vancouver.

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

More are being lost every year to high-rises and greater density. Take a walk along East Vancouver lanes. Almost EVERY single new construction has two suites ( minimum ) in the basement + 1 laneway home. The SFH, I agree is disappearing. These large detached buildings are more like mini-apartments.

Fair point about there being 20,000 construction starts for the year ( slowing down, too... I wonder why ).

Yes, 300k come to Canada. As was stated before, 30k come to BC, approximately 20k to Metro Vancouver: From Langley to Lion's Bay. Langley and Surrey are growing faster than Vancouver and have lots of space left.

North Burnaby is converting commercial areas into high-rises and has lots of space left. There haven't been empty lots in Vancouver since the 70s, yet it's only recently that prices have skyrocketed. A mortgage was cheaper than rent in the 90s assuming you had a down payment. You could still manage to buy a SFH in Vancouver as a starter home in 2005 if you were middle-class.

Immigration and Investors are a SMALL piece of the puzzle when it comes to high real-estate prices. And remember, real-estate prices have been going up in parallel across the country in the last decade. Sure, they haven't been going up as FAST as Vancouver, but it's not as if some massive trickle-down Chinese investor effect is causing 25-year old SFHs in Hope to command prices like $460k.

Prices have escalated primarily because of cheap debt, lax lending policies and a lack of real data. When you don't have the real data, the numbers are open to manipulation.

The media feeds on it and regurgitates it. This convinces the public that the causes are external because no one want to blame themselves. No one who just paid too much for a house wants to believe that they paid too much for a house. It feels so much more comfortable to believe in the Chinese boogeyman, come to buy all our houses is keeping prices high.

Remember the Asians who took a yellow helicopter out to check out Richmond real estate? Headline news. Remember it turning out that the 'passengers' were just other real estate agents from Burnaby and Richmond? An elaborate ploy by a real-estate agency to seed fear to the media. And perhaps using that clip to further their interests in China where they were legitimately using the same tactics to convince some Chinese to come to Vancouver and buy property.

Remember the local Chinese girls who were buying a property for their parents. Ended up being "MAC Marketing" employees. Oops. How many of these seeded stories NEVER get found out?

Why isn't the data released? It's not as if it doesn't exist. According to the radio yesterday, you can request, for $7, the history of any property through a realtor.

Why can't this be made public without an agent. This data is what allows sites like Zillow to offer their amazing service south of the border. Load up Blaine or Bellingham in Zillow and check out the data that we COULD have in Vancouver.

twoNeurons, I'm curious because one's background can "color"/influence one's perspective. What is your ethnicity/race and are you engaged in the home mortgage/real estate industry? Please be honest!

[Vin]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Finally Vin and I mostly agree...

I would argue that the city is changing zoning for densification, but it just needs to go faster. What is happening along Cambie should be happening simultaneously across other arterials.

And why is something like Oakridge taking forever?

Yeah, but it is still sad that the re-zoning of SFH zone is only taking place along Cambie, and not a bigger cluster of neighbourhood spanning multiple streets/blocks to create true urban communities.

Other re-zoned neighbourhoods were former industrial (as in East Fraser Lands/River District & Olympic Village) and even institutional/public (as in Langara and 41st Street bus depot) lands.

All-in-all, single family neighbourhoods remain mostly unaltered in Vancouver, but high density areas are replacing other land uses, which is not sustainable at all. Last thing I want to see is the encroachment of parks and golf courses to up-zone to high density residential neighbourhoods. The City needs to target more on current SFH neighbourhoods to increase densities, but I have to admit this is an uphill task. But if they want to talk about sustainability, that's what they have to do.

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by Vin

I think this discussion is a lot more than just "hatin SFH". Higher density not only houses more people, it reduces everyone's ecological footprints, and enables munipalities to be more efficient and sustainable on managing growth. One example is that transit services can better serve higher density neighbourhoods, and thus their investments can be further justified.

The days of extensive urban sprawl is long gone, at least in large Canadian cities. In the Lower Mainland, this is not only because of a lack of land to expand, but also because sprawl has brought a whole hosts of problems, like wasted time on traffic jams, financial resources on building and maintaining roads and highways, encroachments into agricultural lands and green belts, increased pollution, etc. In terms of health issue, studies have also confirmed that folks living in the suburbs are less healthy, as opposed to people living in high-density neighbourhoods who can walk to shop, dine, and run numerous errands without having to drive.

In fact, contrary to what you are claiming, the present Vancouver's City Hall council is doing many things counter-productive to densification. And speaking of hipsters, many actually live near Main street area, which is a primarily low density residential neighbourhood.

I would say 95% of Vancouver's residential land is currently SFH, so why fret when some residents want a little more share of this land to be turned high-density? Remember, quoting from you, this is not a "one size fits all" approach. You also need to consider the increasing number of urban folks who are actually calling for higher density in this city.

I am aware of the virtues of housing density, and am in support of densification. However, that doesn't mean that all policies under that banner are good ones.

I dunno about sprawl being dead. Our fastest growing municipalities are riddled with sprawl who are almost completely disconnected from any form of meaningful transit connection. In addition, certain policies towards roads in the region have contributed to traffic problems as much, if not more than sprawl.

The reason why I "fret", is because **some** of the city of Vancouver and other select municipalities' policies are counterproductive to truly making the area affordable. For a new arrival, the only option is to live in a overpriced shoebox in Vancouver, or you have to move to an outlining area far from work, with the aforementioned horrible transit connection. I'm sorry but a laneway house or a 400 sq ft apartment is not an answer to affordable housing. Far too many civic policies seem to suit only a certain type of person and lifestyle. Unfortunately, the "real" world doesn't always work that way. People need real options, not socially engineered ones. That is what i meant by a "one size fits all" policy.

[SpongeG]

Vancouver house-buying frenzy leaves half-empty neighbourhoods

When Clare Cullen looks out her windows or takes her dog for a walk, she said it often makes her sad. In every direction, she sees old houses sitting empty or lots where houses have been demolished – to be replaced by opulent new ones that she expects no one will live in.

Ms. Cullen shares an older character house with her husband and teenage children in a westside Vancouver neighbourhood. It has become a prime area for real estate investment by wealthy foreign buyers – some of whom are nowhere to be seen, she said.

“Lots of people are not home. Lots of houses are empty. Sold to the highest bidder,” said Ms. Cullen, an administrator at the University of British Columbia.

She is among several long-time residents speaking out in growing numbers about their fear that their community is disappearing.

“I see a house sold now – and you just know it’s going to get demolished. If families were then moving in and engaging, that would be different,” Ms. Cullen said. “The houses they build are empty – or people are only here for a month.”

...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/brit...lf-empty-neighbourhoods/article27056534/

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Vancouver house-buying frenzy leaves half-empty neighbourhoods

When Clare Cullen looks out her windows or takes her dog for a walk, she said it often makes her sad. In every direction, she sees old houses sitting empty or lots where houses have been demolished – to be replaced by opulent new ones that she expects no one will live in.

Ms. Cullen shares an older character house with her husband and teenage children in a westside Vancouver neighbourhood. It has become a prime area for real estate investment by wealthy foreign buyers – some of whom are nowhere to be seen, she said.

“Lots of people are not home. Lots of houses are empty. Sold to the highest bidder,” said Ms. Cullen, an administrator at the University of British Columbia.

She is among several long-time residents speaking out in growing numbers about their fear that their community is disappearing.

“I see a house sold now – and you just know it’s going to get demolished. If families were then moving in and engaging, that would be different,” Ms. Cullen said. “The houses they build are empty – or people are only here for a month.”

...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/brit...lf-empty-neighbourhoods/article27056534/

Such urban socioeconomic realities (re: declining school age demographics/upward spiraling housing prices beyond the average young family's reach) are causing headaches for the Vancouver School District which is struggling to fill its classroom seats. But I guess conservative (anti public school) advocates will jump for joy as they see this an an opportunity to cut government spending/budget (on public education for the poor) by encouraging private schools (with subsidies from the government purse of course--as Christy Clark is already doing)!

[giallo]

Originally Posted by Caliplanner1

You obviously don't know Los Angeles. I live in the relatively affordable San Fernando Valley which is officially a part of the City of L.A.! Obviously I wouldn't expect a new graduate/kid coming out of college to be able to buy a house here but a money wise/prudent mid life/level professsional surely can. My house could easily sell for $3-4 million in Vancouver..........many times its value here in L.A.!

Isn't the San Fernando Valley about an hour outside of any reasonably-sized business center in LA proper though (due to traffic). That'd be like living in Surrey or Langley. It's not a fair comparison at all. Prices in West LA (around the size of Vancouver proper) are for more comparable to what you're seeing in Vancouver.

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by giallo

Isn't the San Fernando Valley about an hour outside of any reasonably-sized business center in LA proper though (due to traffic). That'd be like living in Surrey or Langley. It's not a fair comparison at all. Prices in West LA (around the size of Vancouver proper) are for more comparable to what you're seeing in Vancouver.

No, we have the Warner (business) Center (with multiple high rise office towers) here in the West Valley. But again L.A. is relatively decentralized and thus has so many jobs generating town centers/mini down towns that the old paradigm of having to drive to a single/distant urban core doesn't hold! Many folks here also work from home or close to home (as I do).

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Caliplanner1

You obviously don't know Los Angeles. I live in the relatively affordable San Fernando Valley which is officially a part of the City of L.A.! Obviously I wouldn't expect a new graduate/kid coming out of college to be able to buy a house here but a money wise/prudent mid life/level professsional surely can. My house could easily sell for $3-4 million in Vancouver..........many times its value here in L.A.!

IMO the san Fernando valley is more similar in form to langley/surrey than it is for the city of Vancouver. I think they are starting to ask for more density, transit and LRT lines, like SOF, but they still have a long ways to go.

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2011/10/omg_san_fernando_valley_wants_some_transit_density.php

I suspect "a very long weekend" was talking about price increases in more central quickly gentrifying areas of SFH in LA, like Silver Lake, Echo Park and Los Feliz.

----

It's ironic that in a thread about real estate speculation, the San Fernando Valley comes up. For those that don't know the history the Valley agreed to annexation to access water from the LA aqueduct. Prior to the annexation, insiders from LA bought plots of land at cheap prices to cash in when water service was started.

More ironic in this thread that the name of the movie based on these events is called Chinatown. Conspiracy!

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

IMO the san Fernando valley is more similar in form to langley/surrey than it is for the city of Vancouver. I think they are starting to ask for more density, transit and LRT lines, like SOF, but they still have a long ways to go.

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2011/10/omg_san_fernando_valley_wants_some_transit_density.php

I suspect "a very long weekend" was talking about price increases in more central quickly gentrifying areas of SFH in LA, like Silver Lake, Echo Park and Los Feliz.

----

It's ironic that in a thread about real estate speculation, the San Fernando Valley comes up. For those that don't know the history the Valley agreed to annexation to access water from the LA aqueduct. Prior to the annexation, insiders from LA bought plots of land at cheap prices to cash in when water service was started.

More ironic in this thread that the name of the movie based on these events is called Chinatown. Conspiracy!

Langley and Surrey are geopolitically different entities/densities from Vancouver. Thus, I would more so compare them (re: Langley/Surrey etc.) in form with the more rural/suburban bedroom (and semi commercial) communities of Santa Clarita, Simi Valley or Thousand Oaks than with the more dense/urban SFV (in terms of juxtaposition with L.A.).

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Caliplanner1

It's kind of ironic that the urban sprawl of my city, Los Angeles, has made low density housing affordable and enjoyable. I do enjoy coming home (5 minutes from work) to a nice big backyard/swimming pool and privacy.

I am now starting to seriously reconsider my attraction to Vancouver as a "livable city" with all this increasing density or overcrowding/loss of quiet suburban privacy towards increasing urban congestion/noise within the context of higher housing prices etc.!

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think the comparison needs some context:



source: http://mapfrappe.blogspot.ca/2011/02/cities.html

LA has a large footprint. A typical neighbourhood in Vancouver I would guess has half the footprint of Santa Monica, or a full Venice.

Is San Fernando densifying/gentrifying? It's interesting to hear about different areas, but IMO your comparison needs more context

[GlassCity]

Not to mention that a large chunk of that Vancouver land is protected for agriculture. Sure paving over it with single family houses might provide people with the housing options they really want, but is it worth destroying all that farmland? Because that's really the choice we have here to deal with increasing supply: density or removing farmland.

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think the comparison needs some context:



source: http://mapfrappe.blogspot.ca/2011/02/cities.html

LA has a large footprint. A typical neighbourhood in Vancouver I would guess has half the footprint of Santa Monica, or a full Venice.

Is San Fernando densifying/gentrifying? It's interesting to hear about different areas, but IMO your comparison needs more context

I would argue that the SFV is both gentrifying and densifying....and in some cases even ghettoizing! But I digress.....I see where retiring Vancouver city planner Brian Jackson (who also worked in L.A.) sees (wealthy?) Chinese immigrants as a major contributor for fast rising housing prices in Vancouver: http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/colu...+city+planner+blasts/11496039/story.html

[casper]

Originally Posted by Caliplanner1

Such urban socioeconomic realities (re: declining school age demographics/upward spiraling housing prices beyond the average young family's reach) are causing headaches for the Vancouver School District which is struggling to fill its classroom seats. But I guess conservative (anti public school) advocates will jump for joy as they see this an an opportunity to cut government spending/budget (on public education for the poor) by encouraging private schools (with subsidies from the government purse of course--as Christy Clark is already doing)!

This is not all bad. I know both public elementary schools (1980s) and the high school I attended (in 1990s) had some portables. The portables are all gone. In some cases the schools have actually undertaken building expansions.

It is a positive when the building is slightly overbuilt relative to the needs of the student populations. Portables are scrappy environments to put kids in both from a health and learning experience perspective.

A bit of belt tightening for the school boards may not be a bad thing. It forces them to look at various programs and services they provide and eliminate the ones that do not make sense.

One trend that was going on in Saskatoon (and Saskatchewan in general) is when a new school is built it is a bilding the houses a wing for the public school, a wing with the catholic school and another area that houses the community centre. Costs are driven down by sharing a building and being able to reassign space between the users as needed over time.

[whatnext]

Follow the money, story from the Province:

....(Vancouver realtor Liang Ming)Wei had arranged for three million yuan to be deposited in a Chinese bank and transferred to a Richmond currency exchange. Exchange owner Tony Xu called Wei and told the realtor his client’s cash had arrived and it was converted to $521,470 Canadian.

It was 10 times the legal amount individuals are allowed to transfer from China. And it was 50 times over the $10,000 limit that must be reported under Canada’s anti-money-laundering laws.

Instead of having Wei come to his Richmond location to pick up the cash, Tony Xu said it was better for the realtor to meet his brother Frank Xu in Vancouver. Wei’s client Zhongyun Zhang, a Chinese transportation professional, had come to Vancouver in August 2014 and set up a Bank of Montreal account with Wei’s help.

She had listed his Burnaby home address as her own. And on the title deed of Wei’s home she claimed to be a homemaker. Bank documents said she was a Canadian resident. None of it was true.

In Floata, Liang Ming Wei took three bank drafts totalling $470,000 and a cheque for $50,000 from Frank Xu, all made out to Zhongyun Zhang.

The money was supposed to come from Zhang’s account in China. But one of the bank drafts came from a Vancouver dentist who did not know Zhang, and was victim of an alleged fraud by a man named Ayaz Dhanani.

The other two bank drafts came from citizens who also did not know Zhang.

According to evidence tendered at a B.C. Securities Commission hearing, the financial instruments handed to Wei in Floata had passed through at least five sets of hands. These elaborate transactions occurred because Wei had told Zhang that “no matter what,” she must have $500,000 in Canada to buy a house.... (bold mine)

http://www.theprovince.com/business/Foll...r+real+estate+market/11683456/story.html

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by casper

This is not all bad. I know both public elementary schools (1980s) and the high school I attended (in 1990s) had some portables. The portables are all gone. In some cases the schools have actually undertaken building expansions.

It is a positive when the building is slightly overbuilt relative to the needs of the student populations. Portables are scrappy environments to put kids in both from a health and learning experience perspective.

A bit of belt tightening for the school boards may not be a bad thing. It forces them to look at various programs and services they provide and eliminate the ones that do not make sense.

One trend that was going on in Saskatoon (and Saskatchewan in general) is when a new school is built it is a bilding the houses a wing for the public school, a wing with the catholic school and another area that houses the community centre. Costs are driven down by sharing a building and being able to reassign space between the users as needed over time.

I think you're missing the big picture. Vibrant communities/economies need a healthy balanced demographic (via age/gender/income etc.). The future of Vancouver ultimately depends on its youthful population/quality (or lack thereof)!

As per school board funding, the less children in attendance, the less student-based revenues that will be garnered (a reality that ultimately harms the potential quality of educational service delivery) !

[Caliplanner1]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Follow the money, story from the Province:

....(Vancouver realtor Liang Ming)Wei had arranged for three million yuan to be deposited in a Chinese bank and transferred to a Richmond currency exchange. Exchange owner Tony Xu called Wei and told the realtor his client’s cash had arrived and it was converted to $521,470 Canadian.

It was 10 times the legal amount individuals are allowed to transfer from China. And it was 50 times over the $10,000 limit that must be reported under Canada’s anti-money-laundering laws.

Instead of having Wei come to his Richmond location to pick up the cash, Tony Xu said it was better for the realtor to meet his brother Frank Xu in Vancouver. Wei’s client Zhongyun Zhang, a Chinese transportation professional, had come to Vancouver in August 2014 and set up a Bank of Montreal account with Wei’s help.

She had listed his Burnaby home address as her own. And on the title deed of Wei’s home she claimed to be a homemaker. Bank documents said she was a Canadian resident. None of it was true.

In Floata, Liang Ming Wei took three bank drafts totalling $470,000 and a cheque for $50,000 from Frank Xu, all made out to Zhongyun Zhang.

The money was supposed to come from Zhang’s account in China. But one of the bank drafts came from a Vancouver dentist who did not know Zhang, and was victim of an alleged fraud by a man named Ayaz Dhanani.

The other two bank drafts came from citizens who also did not know Zhang.

According to evidence tendered at a B.C. Securities Commission hearing, the financial instruments handed to Wei in Floata had passed through at least five sets of hands. These elaborate transactions occurred because Wei had told Zhang that “no matter what,” she must have $500,000 in Canada to buy a house.... (bold mine)

http://www.theprovince.com/business/Foll...r+real+estate+market/11683456/story.html

A close relative of mine who teaches in the Vancouver adult education program recently pointed out that there were also large numbers of wealthy middle-eastern "refugees" (ones driving luxury cars and giving exclusive residential addresses at registration time) who also are culprit to similar transgressions that we hear of within the immigrant Chinese community.