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Comment by skewart | Hacker News Reader

I always hear about these people, but I've had a hard time tracking down any data on who they are or how many properties they have bought.

I'm sure there are some wealthy Chinese people who have bought property in major cities as a way to park money. I'm just a little skeptical that it's in any way a significant driver of higher housing prices. I would be willing to bet that there are far more Canadians looking to buy housing in Vancouver than there are foreigners looking to do so.

The fundamental problem seems to be that there are more people who want to move to Vancouver than there are people who want to leave. It would be incredible if there were so many foreigners looking to buy places to park money that reducing their numbers would somehow change this fact.

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I've lived in an older but expensive (even by Vancouver standards) neighbourhood with larger houses and lots most of my life, and many of our neighbours have been replaced by mainland Chinese with absentee husband/father.

I'd say the effects are overestimated by locals, but they are definitely around and easily observable by those who live here, and since they buy housing at the top end of the market, they skew the average home sales prices significantly upward. Realtors also espouse a "buy now or be priced out forever" which scares locals into borrowing way beyond their means, and banks in Canada are happy to loan them the money when taxpayers cover the mortgage for them (but not the home owners) through CMHC. Household debt in Canada is at record highs, worse than the US in 2008, and Vancouver is by far the most extreme example especially given that our average incomes are significantly lower than the other major Canadian cities.

I'm Canadian and I've never heard of anyone moving to Vancouver.

It's rainy, depressing, very expensive, and unlike SF there aren't isn't any major industry paying fat salaries to make it worth it.

Interesting. I've known several Canadians who've moved there from elsewhere in BC, and from Quebec. Vancouver's population has grown steadily over the last few decades[0]. Though perhaps it hasn't had anything like the population boom that, say, Calgary has, or the same kind of economic draw that SF has.

What are the places you've found your fellow Canadians tend to move to?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Vancouver

> What are the places you've found your fellow Canadians tend to move to?

CS classmates: overwhelmingly San Francisco, with NYC and Seattle in second place.

Business graduates: Toronto, Chicago, New York

A few go to remote areas to work in mining etc.

But yeah, never heard of anyone moving to Vancouver unless they were originally from there and were moving back.

Almost everyone new I meet moved to Vancouver from elsewhere. I often get the comment that I'm the first person they've met that grew up here.

Rain is preferable to freezing snow in most other parts of the country, and true Vancouverites don't mind it because it means fresh powder on the mountains for skiing/snowboarding, conveniently located 30 minutes from downtown and open at night with artificial lighting. And there's no place better in the summer, when there's no rain, extreme heat, humidity, or mosquitoes. Just lush green surroundings, and ocean and mountain views everywhere

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