Mondrian calgary.House prices in Vancouver soared. The real estate market in the Greater Vancouver area (hereinafter referred to as Greater Vancouver) has been seriously divided since the province of Abbey launched the property transfer tax for overseas buyers in 2016.Please Visit: Mondrian calgary to Get Your VVIP Registration Today!
On the one hand, the price of independent houses in the metropolitan area tends to be stable, and the valuation of many independent houses in West Windsor has even dropped by 5% and 10%. On the other hand, the price of apartments in Dawen has risen sharply. Places such as Richmond, Beisuli, ZhongSuri and other places have seen an increase of 34% and 40%.
For a long time, the Canadian government and the mainstream media tend to believe that foreign buyers are inextricably linked to the surge in Canadian house prices. In July 2016, the BC provincial government released a set of data recording foreign buyers during the 20-day period in June of that year. According to the data, foreign buyers account for 3.3 per cent of property transactions in Dawen, of which Chinese buyers account for 76.6 per cent. According to this set of data alone, Chinese buyers are indeed the main force of foreign buyers in Dawen area, but the overall proportion of foreign buyers is only 3.3%, and it is difficult to say that they have pushed up housing prices.
Statistics on foreign property buyers released by the BC provincial government in July 2016. Photo: British Columbia Real Estate Bureau.
On December 18, 2017, US real estate research firm Engel & Volkers released a set of data on foreign buyers after counting the number of property transactions in Vancouver from January to September. During this period, foreign buyers dominated the Vancouver luxury property market, accounting for 85 per cent of total transaction volume, with foreign buyers dominated by Chinese buyers, followed by French and German buyers, according to the data.
Each of these two sets of data has its own shortcomings. British Columbia figures count only 20 days of trading volume, while Engel & Volkers’s data are mainly aimed at the high-end market, both of which are not comprehensive enough. According to these two sets of data, it can only be said that Chinese buyers account for a high proportion of foreign buyers, and it is not yet possible to conclude that foreign buyers are the driving force behind soaring house prices. As a matter of fact, as mentioned earlier, the prices of independent houses in Dawen area have been stable or even low in the past year.
On December 19, 2017, Statistics Canada released data on non-resident buyers in Vancouver and Toronto. According to the data, the proportion of non-resident buyers in Dawen area is 4.8%, of which 7.9% are non-resident buyers in apartments. On this basis, many real estate analysts believe that this set of data shows once again that foreign buyers or overseas buyers are not driving the surge in house prices.
In fact, Statistics Canada data can not explain the impact of foreign buyers at all, because it counts “non-resident buyers”. The exact definition of the Bureau of Statistics is “An individual whose principal residence is outside of Canada”, which translates to individuals whose main residence is outside Canada. Accordingly, a foreigner who does not live in Canada but has a house in Canada is a non-resident; a Canadian who has lived abroad for a long time but also has a house at home is also a non-resident. This concept of “non-resident buyer” is totally different from that of “foreign buyer”.
Statistics Canada’s data reflect the impact of non-resident investors, including Canadians, on property in Greater Windsor. Judging from the data, the 4.8% ratio means that these property investors outside Canada should have little impact on Dawen’s overall house prices. Even in the apartment market, from a static point of view, 7.9% of non-resident buyers do not seem to be able to push up apartment prices. But if you look at it in stages, you will know that it is not that simple.
From 2011 to 2015, the proportion of non-resident buyers in Dawen was 10.12%, 12.39% in Vancouver and 16.2% in Richmond. From 2016 to 2017, the proportion of non-resident buyers in Dawen rose to 15.54%, Vancouver rose to 19.14 and Richmond rose to 23.69%. This means that in just one year, the proportion of non-resident buyers in Dawen has increased by more than 5 percentage points, while the proportion of non-resident buyers in Vancouver and Richmond has increased by about 7 percentage points. This large increase in investment in the short term (non-residents are certainly not buying apartments for housing) is partly to blame for the soaring price of Dawen apartments in 2017.