Metro Vancouver’s hot real estate market is being largely driven by Chinese immigrants, not mainland Chinese investors, according to a survey released by a local real estate and marketing firm.
The report by MAC Marketing Solutions is the latest indication that a growing belief that offshore Asian investors are the main force behind the region’s surge in sales is largely a misconception.
“Virtually all [the] sales to people of Asian descent are people integrated into our community,” company president Cameron McNeill said in an interview Monday of their survey’s findings. “The people we’re selling to live here and have bank accounts here.
“There’s a misconception that people think [mainland Chinese] are travelling here [to purchase] or are buying off-site. It’s the opposite. Very few people are buying that don’t reside in Vancouver.”
McNeill said that while the Vancouver market has seen a lot of investment by the Asian communities, there’s confusion as to where they’re from or why they’re buying.
“These are buyers who are part of our community. Their children are in a school here. They work here and reside here. It’s a healthy part of our real estate industry.”
McNeill said MAC accumulated raw samples of 500 buyer profiles, comprehensive data collected from each purchaser at the time contracts are written, and analyzed each for ethnicity and residency.
The profiles included 25 questions to learn more about the profile of the buyers and identify trends in contracts, mostly for presale highrise condominiums, but also low-rise condos, townhouses and detached single family homes.
From Jan. 1 to June 1, MAC reported that of 500 buyers spread over 17 of their projects in Metro Vancouver, 330, or 66 per cent, are of Chinese descent.
The survey concluded that just three buyers, or 0.6 per cent, have their primary residence in China.
McNeill noted that foreign buyers were also from the Middle East, the U.S. and Europe.
The MAC survey follows other reports suggesting buyers are mainly Canadian citizens, immigrants or new residents in Canada — many with strong links to mainland China and many residing and working in China while their families establish roots in B.C.
Jennifer Podmore, real estate advisory leader for accounting giant Deloitte, recently told The Vancouver Sun that investors are not the main drivers of the market. “There are certainly a lot more Asian purchasers, but not Asian investors coming to purchase a condo and then leaving.
“Most [buyers] have strong ties to Vancouver, meaning they’re Canadians, immigrants or live here,” added Podmore.
McNeill’s and Podmore’s comments follow a surge in investment, largely by ethnic Asian buyers with links to mainland China, that’s branching out from Richmond and Vancouver’s west side as buyers look to other communities.
Meanwhile, a recent MarketShare report by Colliers International concluded that Metro Vancouver real estate is now in the same category as New York, London and other major global cities.
“These cities attract the world for a variety of reasons,” Greg Ashley, president and managing partner, Colliers International residential marketing, said in the report.
“It could be business, it could be culture, and it could be “the people” … whatever the reason we are now experiencing what other world-class cities have experienced for years.
“There also seems to be more myths than facts about mainland Chinese investing. This trend is certainly impacting single-family housing values in Vancouver [the west side] and Richmond. However, it is not the driving force behind all sales. For example, a number of the recent launches reported large numbers of Asian buyers. Yet a significant portion of these buyers are actually local residents not foreigners.”
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