Chinese buyers in Vancouver

Here's a newspaper article about the number of Chinese buyers in Vancouver. It's based on a study into who bought what.

In a six-month period, 70% of detached homes sold in Vancouver's west side went to Mainland China buyers

The short version is that something like 70% of all detached houses in the west side, and over 90% of properties worth over $4 million were purchased by Mainland Chinese. In many cases the buyers were students or housewives, without the apparent income needed. In fact, what they declare is less than is needed to cover housing costs.

One interesting statistic is that only 18% of houses were bought without mortgages. The claim is that the Chinese don't need to borrow, but this doesn't seem to be borne out by the statistics.

And a quote from the article that's worth considering:

“I think the bigger question to be studied is what happens when the driver for your residential market is wealth, not wages? That is a major public policy issue.”