About seven per cent of Greater Vancouver home sales involve overseas buyers – that is, non-Canadian-resident buyers – according to a survey of BC notaries.
Across the province, the figure is about five per cent, found the online survey of 133 notaries who convey real estate transactions.
“There is a lot of ongoing high-profile public discussion about the rising cost of housing in many areas of BC, the potential linkage to foreign buyers and resulting pressure on regulators to address this through a change in taxes or other fees on real estate purchases,” said Tammy Morin Nakashima, president of BC Notaries and a notary in Steveston.
“Our survey results, which indicate that the vast majority of real estate purchases in BC are made by BC or Canadian residents, points to the need for careful consideration of any related legislative changes.”
When participants were asked whether they had noticed any change in the amount of foreign buyer purchases in their community in 2015, 41 per cent reported they had observed no change, 37 per cent said they had seen an increase, and 13 per cent a decrease.
The survey also revealed the extent to which overseas investment is skewed within various communities. Of the 60 participating notaries who practice in Greater Vancouver, 33 per cent reported no overseas buyer transactions in 2015; 52 per cent said that 10 per cent or less of their real estate transactions were with overseas buyers; five per cent reported that 26 to 50% of their transactions represented non-resident buyers and only two Greater Vancouver notaries said that more than half included overseas buyers.
In terms of change over 2015, 44 per cent saw no change, 42 per cent saw an increase, and 5 per cent saw a decrease in overseas buyer activity.
In the Fraser Valley, non-Canadian-resident buyers were represented in only an estimated two per cent of notaries’ real estate transactions. Nearly a third of respondents had no foreign buyer transactions at all, and the remaining 69 per cent of notaries said these transactions represented 10 per cent or less of the conveyancing they managed in 2015.
On Vancouver Island, 20 participating notaries reported that an average of two per cent of their real estate conveyancing represented an overseas buyer and 30 per cent indicated they had had no foreign buyer clients in 2015. The remaining 70 all said foreign buyers represented 10 per cent or less of their real estate transactions last year.
On the surface, the figures mark a stark contrast to recent studies such as that carried out by urban planner Andy Yan last year, which looked at the purchases of 172 single-family homes between August 2014 and February 2015 and found two-thirds many were made by people with non-anglicized Chinese names.
However, Yan’s finding was based purely on homes on Vancouver’s pricey West Side and did not distinguish between non-resident buyers and local, resident buyers who happen to have Chinese last names. So it is possible that a high proportion of these purchases were made by locally resident buyers. (See editorial on the media coverage of the Yan study here.)
