Whitby Estates in West Vancouver…
The area, developed between 2009 and 2014, was marketed to investors from China. Two-thirds of the names on titles in the B.C. Assessment database are non-anglicized Chinese names. Some of those names are familiar to court watchers in B.C.
I’ve friends who bought a house in the lower mainland, surrounded by empty mansions. Some were “staged” with playground equipment to provide the lived-in look.
Good research by Breaker News. I do not know much about the on-line publication (it doesn’t seem conservative), but surveying its home page, it seems like a muck raking publication.
Once the Libranos are imprisoned, and the keys thrown away, may I suggest expropriation of the property, real and financial, of Trudeau’s Chinese paymasters on Canadian soil. Real estate to be re-sold only to individuals who can demonstrate that they are Canadian citizens and have lived in Canada for six of the last seven years.
I think a lot of this is to provide an escape hatch for well off Chinese families if things in the PRC go sideways. Chairman Xi is an old school Communist at heart. Smart Chinese know how things can change overnight, and they can go from respected business people to enemies of the state tomorrow. Maybe the old people won’t escape, but their children will have a good chance.
Mainland Chinese lived through “The Great Leap Forward,” “Let One Thousand Blossoms Bloom,” and the Cultural Revolution. China has had decades of explosive growth without any recessions. What will happen, or who will be blamed in the next downturn?
If I was Chinese and had the money, I would do this.
This is exactly the case and Chinese who can afford it are parking their money and moving it out of China anyway they can.
Any suffering the citiots put themselves through, is fine by me. You want high gas prices? YOU CAN HAZ HIGH GAS PRICES! You want China to own Vancouver? YOU CAN HAZ THAT TOO. You want to close the food banks with carbon taxes? DONE! You want 24 year wait lists for any and all consults or surgeries? COMING RIGHT UP!
Remember, Sarah Palin is still an idiot for saying “death panels”, all us sane people know there is no such thing! A western country like us would never put police around a child so that he could not be removed from a hospital! A western country like us would never have the highest court overturn a conviction against a family that treated meningitis with garlic and horseradish!
I have difficulty grasping the concept of “West” Vancouver because isn’t that the ocean?
That would be ” of ” …
Never mind…
gotta keep going west. keeeeeeeep going west . . . . . . . Chirer, vankuvher, no diff . . . .
Sort of, Robert. North Vancouver is on the north shore. West Vancouver is to the west of North Vancouver (also on the north shore), wrapping around between the mountains and the ocean. Driving from Vancouver to Squamish (or Whistler) means passing through West Vancouver.
OK. So you have some people laundering their money into Canada via mansion building. Creates construction jobs for Canadians. And they are paying some pretty big property and school taxes yet they are not consuming any public resources because they are absentee owners. Nor are they shooting up drugs on the street. So far I see a lot to like here.
There is a lot to like if you’re the person coming into the country with lots of money. It’s not so great if you’re the person trying to buy a house in an area where outside money has driven prices out of your reach. I was in the Burnaby and Richmond area a few weeks ago. The Chinese drive around in very expensive cars and the east Indians pump the gas, take the credit cars (pay before you pump) and greet you in the hotel lobby.
So what. Get a job and move to somewhere that is affordable instead of whining and crying that other people have more money than you. These crybabies get ZERO sympathy from me.
When you wrote “the Chinese drive around…” you shot the absentee owner non-argument in the head.
@So What: a modification to your statement is needed “the Chinese drive ‘badly’ around.”
True, but at least they pay their taxes.
The lack of affordable housing in Vancouver has nothing to do with Chinese and everything to do with the ALR and the other restrictions on building anything.
A generation ago it was the Chinese pumping the gas. The east Indians that are doing all the construction jobs now are also the ones pooling capital and buying properties and yes, they will be the ones driving around in nice cars in 20 years. How I hate lazy whining jealous liberal commie crybabies.
Lefties demand and get insane regulations to prevent land subdivision, development and construction in a country and Province where only 11% of land is privately owned, and the lefties support the ongoing refusal of the Crown to sell land, because “Green” dont’cha know?
Then the lefties blame a housing shortage on everybody but themselves.
Isn’t blaming shit like this on foreigners so typical of both the old time National Socialists and the modern ones who comprise the left? And I wonder who their new Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals will be? Because if it isn’t the fault of the lefties, it’s gotta be someone’s fault and they’re looking about for someone to vilify. The Chinese are a test run.
A few years ago, before our son went back to university, he worked for a large Fraser Valley landscaping company. This company did the multi-level landscaping inside and outside for a home that cost $300 million. Yes, you read that right. The home was mostly constructed with a lot of marble.
I asked him, Oriental owner, as he could not divulge the name? He said no, Caucasian. My first thought at that was Russian Oligarch.
Canada Revenue Agency could clean up by creating an office in Vancouver to monitor who is actually living in houses. I have a feeling that a lot of these money laundering houses are sold without paying capital gains tax by false claims of primary residence exemption.
By all means, let’s apply raw libertarian logic to this situation until the colonial project is finished. Then you’ll have all the time in the world to read Ayn Rand in the camps.
Peter has the comment of the day, IMO.
“the colonial project is finished. Then you’ll have all the time in the world to read Ayn Rand in the camps.”
WTAF are you talking about?
Having left the Vancouver area a few years back, this story had me thinking of mostly one theme…
Nothing in the Lower Mainland that is not locked up like a fortress or guarded round the clock goes unstolen.
There must be an army of security companies keeping Vancouver’s multitudes of druggies from taking over some of these deserted properties. Since lowlifes routinely ride the bus system there for free, they have few limits from moving between, and stealing from, most any neighboring municipality.
You just gave me a GREAT idea! All foreign “investors” in North American properties must be owner-occupied (physically) … or be remanded to the State for housing dozens of homeless families (per house) for FREE. All of these foreign Communist owners will thoroughly understand the Dr. Zhivago model of Communist property seizure. It’s for the “good of the Canadian State” comrade! FIRST priority given to the “transgender community” of course.
I wonder what would happen if I just moved in to one of those homes? Would anyone notice? It seems the police don’t enforce civil matters like squatting, so how long could I live before a legal eviction would be enforce?
I suspect a secret Chinese police force is operating within these communities … who will take care of the problem … Mao-style.
Dear Idiots:
The reason you cannot afford a house is that foreign investors are buying them all. In Ontario exactly the same thing is happening. A new subdivision goes up, Chinese investors buy it all, and it sits empty. This happened down the road from me in Caledonia.
There are 30 million people in Canada. There are a BILLION people in China. Where are you going to live after they buy everything here? Hmm?
Wrong. That has nothing to do with the problem. The reason you cannot afford a house is because you’re not allowed to build any.
In any event, you actually do not have a right to affordable housing. True fact.
Good for the Chinese and their enablers. This is freedom in action punching holes in asinine taxes on foreign property buyers. MOAR
Spoken like a true Quisling…
Quisling? You’re the cause of the problem. It’s because of you that private builders and developers cannot build enough housing for us and foreign investors as well.
You’ve got a lot of nerve calling others nasty names like Quisling.
A place as desirable as Canada should be making a huge income from supplying housing and similar benefits to non-residents, and we would, but for leftist dolts.
Another one of Heinlein’s unlucky people.
“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand”
Milton Friedman
Dox Xing