Vancouver is world’s second least affordable housing market, Demographia survey says

I'm not to deny that Vancouver housing is
unrealistically unaffordable and my suspicion is
this is due to speculation or need to invest in no question asked markets.
As much as I love Vancouver this is not Paris nor London with their breathtaking Architecture and day life and night life and transit etc etcetera .
Real estate in London and Paris are more expensive than Vancouver and the rules to be able to qualify in order
to buy more strict .

This is ridiculous. Can we PLEASE limit international investors already? From what I understand, non-residents can't purchase Chinese real estate, and individual foreign buyers need to show that they have worked in China for at least a year and are buying the residence to actually live in. Similar laws would make a huge difference in Vancouver's affordability.

It's interesting that Victoria is also severely unaffordable because it was almost completely missed by the huge influx from Asia. It is still a very 'white' city and I believe that it's high housing costs are just due to it's desirability to live in. It has all of the amenities of a large city, but without the traffic, stress, crime and filthiness that you get in Metro Vancouver. Why it's being passed over by Asians is a mystery to me. Perhaps the isolation is the problem or that there wasn't a large Asian population there to begin with?

Hey 'for the love of God',

My aunt is a Canadian citizen and she recently bought a condo in Macau to rent out. My aunt has never worked in China and she is allowed to buy real estate in China for either speculation, rental property, or to flip.

Vancouver is a very desirable place to own real estate due to it's spectacular scenery and very mild climate. The flow of money will always go to the most desirable places in a free market economy.

@AL

The benchmark single family home price for Victoria is unaffordable, but it's still only about half that for Vancouver.

But really, the whole country is in a bubble. We're the laughing stock of the world's business media because, like all other bubblers before us, we think "it's different this time!"

If history is any guide at all, it's not different.

Canada has a RE bubble because it's an easy way for governments to juice the economy for a few years, at most a decade. But it always ends badly.

Yes BPOE, It's Different Here! Or is it, It's Different This Time?

So said Miami, San Francisco, Tokyo, Madrid, Dublin, etc.

"This has all happened before, and this will all happen again"

Well,well.
Let see you would like to buy property in Hong Kong and you're not a local resident.
In that case there is 25 percent taxis for you to pay.
On a million dollars property that 250 thousand dollars going to support local economy.

Perhaps what keeps Vancouver from introduction of similar law is strong hand of developers and 5000 000
dollars mayoral race...

Let's check in with the world's business press, eh?

The Economist: "Canada’s house prices are bubbly"

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21584361-america-sur...

Washington Post: "Perhaps scariest of all, if Roubini is right, is that if these are bubbles that eventually pop, policymakers will not have the tools they had in 2008 to cushion the blow...It will be time to Blame Canada.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/02/these-18-coun...

The Wall Street Journal: "Deutsche Bank reported...that home prices in Canada are 60 percent above the historical norm, which gives our neighbor to the north the dubious distinction of having the most overvalued real estate market in the world."

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/12/11/a-worldwide-ranking-of-the-mos...

"Canada tops the list of overvalued housing markets...it’s not hard to think of some key reasons for these differences. Canada, for example, is very open to foreign investors..."

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/12/11/a-worldwide-ranking-of-the-mos...

"Is the Canadian Miracle a Postponed Reckoning?"

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/01/14/canadas-skidding/

The Financial Times: "Canada’s housing market teeters precariously"

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/06e556b4-48d1-11e3-a3ef-00144feabdc0.html

And, coming back home, what are business people who are *not* up their eyeballs in the real estate sector, banking industry, or Con Party saying?

The Globe and Mail: "Why are so many people saying nasty things about Canada's housing market?"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/w...

Financial Post: "Banks could withstand housing collapse, but consumers vulnerable, warns Canada’s top financial watchdog"

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/11/25/julie-dickson-warns-canadas...

Foreign money is flowing into Vancouver's real estate market for sure, and currently it may be predominantly Asian in origin, but it has also arrived from UK, Germany, U.S., elsewhere in Canada, and other places. I think people should be careful in attributing it all as 'Asian' in origin, as it appears to be a racial argument. The problem is speculative capital, not its national origin. As Marx said, Capital has no home.

@Bruce, yes you quote all those global sources saying the Canada's market is in a speculative bubble as the result of overseas investment. But wouldn't you rather believe Vancouver's mayor who was installed by developer money, when he states that it is a "ridiculous" claim that overseas money is driving up Vancouver's housing? Really, what would Deutsche Bank or the Economist know about this kind of thing?