A new study out this week threw fuel on the fire that is always smouldering just under the surface in discussions of Lower Mainland real estate. That’s the debate about the extent of foreign capital in our housing market and the effect it is having.
A study by urban planner Andy Yan found about 70 per cent of homes sold recently in the richest neighbourhoods on Vancouver’s west side had been bought by people with non-anglicized Chinese names.
The cries of racism have been swift – and also largely unwarranted. If our governments actually wanted to capture information about the citizenship status of those buying $4-million homes, they could. So far, however, nobody has had the political gumption to make that happen. In the absence of that data, studies like Yan’s are all we have.
The real-estate industry has worked to aid and abet the wilful blindness of government on this issue to further its own interests. Reality, however, has a way of leaking out.
As Yan’s study suggests, foreign capital is a major force in the upper echelons of our real-estate market. How else to explain mansions worth multiple millions purchased by “housewives” and “students” with little declared income? What happens in the upper stratosphere of the real-estate market also trickles down to the lower levels occupied by mere mortals – the middle class who hope to own a home in a community they live and work in.
How we deal with this – or don’t – has long-term implications. Rather than shout racism to deflect attention from legitimate issues, a thoughtful multi-level government response is needed.
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