A new study appears to confirm what anecdotal evidence has suggested for some time now—Chinese buyers are driving Vancouver’s high-end home market. New data analysis by University of British Columbia adjunct planning professor Alan Yan that finds that 66% of single-family homes in three of Vancouver’s more upscale neighborhoods were purchased by newly immigrated buyers from China. The Globe and Mail reports on the study’s findings and methodology. The resulting study looks at transactions in three neighbourhoods on Vancouver’s west side from August, 2014, to February, 2015. It amounts to 172 sales in total, priced upward of $1.25-million. Mr. Yan screened for non-anglicized Chinese names, a methodology used previously by academics in an effort to separate out names that would likely belong to recent immigrants. The study found that two-thirds of all sales of detached houses in the University Endowment Lands, Dunbar and Point Grey neighbourhoods were purchased by buyers with non-anglicized Chinese names. That group purchased 88 per cent of houses priced at more than $5-million.
While the analysis gives weight to qualitative claims about who is buying in the British Columbia capital, CTV reports that the authors have stated that the findings “shouldn’t be interpreted as a representation of all ownership patterns in every Vancouver neighbourhood.” [The Globe and Mail]View full listing (pictured top)