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by thomas11 3618 days ago
So why does it need to be Vancouver where prices are already very high? Why not buy in another city that's more reasonable?
1 comments

Vancouverite here. I applaud this as a reasonable question.

I understand why immigrating to Vancouver from China makes sense. It has great climate, is postcard attractive, easy China-YVR flights, has a dominant Chinese culture already with lots of Mandarin spoken and Chinese writing/advertisements, and it's generally very welcoming and embracing of Chinese.

But for the investor only, who doesn't plan to live here ... it's a little harder to understand "why only Vancouver?" Some insight ... Vancouver has become very familiar to Chinese investors, so it's a known and well-researched entity to Chinese. Ask a friend, "where should I move my money?" and "Vancouver!" is a respectable answer. There is also now a large marketing machine that straddles China and Vancouver, whereby new and old Vancouver real estate deals are (sometimes exclusively) marketed directly to China. Systems like this (right or wrong) take time to develop and now have momentum. In short ... familiarity, habit, and support systems.

Also, if an investor (or, often, their children) wants to spend any time at all living in their investment ... Vancouver tips the scales for the reasons in the first paragraph.

Because Vancouver's real estate is appreciating faster than nearly every other city in North America [1].

Not only are you washing money, you are likely going to see huge returns on your investment.

23% in a year would pay for this tax with a tidy profit at the end.

[1] - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/new-figures-s...