| I think you are naïve if you believe that a government wouldn't fudge a study to support their best interests (best interests in this case being that most of their top campaign contributors are in the real estate business (1)). Let me give you an example of this happening recently in regards to the Vancouver real estate market. The provincial government released a study on July 7th, stating that only 3% of real estate transactions across BC were from foreign buyers (2). Nobody believed this number, and plenty of people called foul (3). Every single person I talked to involved in the market laughed at those numbers (it is hard not to know someone involved in the market here). The government used these numbers as proof that foreign buyers were not an issue in BC. Only 3 weeks later on July 26th, the exact same ministry in the government released new data that said that foreign buyers accounted for more than 10% of the value of real estate transactions in Metro Vancouver, which is by far the largest real estate market in BC (4). They used this as proof that foreign buyers were indeed a problem. This is a prime example of the ridiculous politics that are at play here. Also of note, if you look at (4), you will see that foreign buyers aren't just buying houses in the exclusive and expensive West Side Vancouver neighbourhoods. According to the data, Burnaby and Richmond, both had 18% foreign buyers. (1) - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/campaign-dono... (2) - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/bc-government-releases-p... (3) - https://www.biv.com/article/2016/7/asian-real-estate-confere... (4) - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-rea... *Edit - formatting |