Buyers with connections to mainland China are snapping up one third of single-family homes in Vancouver and spending way above the already huge average price, according to a survey by Macdonald Realty.
Macdonald Realty Ltd., which is one of BC's largest real estate companies, said 33.5 per cent of the single-family homes sales in its Vancouver offices in 2013 went to a demographic that included both recent immigrants from China and Canadian citizens with Chinese lineage.
Macdonald Realty also found that those buyers averaged a sale price of $2 million, considerably higher than the average sale price of $1.4 million for a single-family home in Vancouver.
Tony Letvinchuk, managing director of Macdonald Realty, told Business News Network that although he expected there would be some impact on the local housing market, "it won't be as big an impact as factors such as interest rates and where they are going."
He added: "It definitely adds vibrancy and health to our real estate market, it assists developers so they know that a certain percentage of their condominiums will be taken by buyers from offshore, and it helps with rental supply because without new condos there's virtually no rental stock coming onto the market in Metro Vancouver."
In terms of whether the buyers are buying to live or for investment purposes, Letvinchuk said that although the survey did not "drill down into intentions", he did believe that "most buyers either plan to live or spend some time in Vancouver" and that not many were pure investors.
The data did not include suburban areas such as Richmond, Burnaby or North Vancouver.
