Mainland Chinese dominated the buying activity for the past few years and into June/July of 2011. Around 90% of my listings sold to Chinese until July. Now I’m noticing an entirely different wave - Caucasians who sold their houses locally are buying condos or moving to more affordable areas. And the bulk of offshore buying in West Van right now is the Iranian market with many new buyers hitting the market.

No comments for a while… but selling a lot : number one team in West Van again! And number 7 in Western Canada!

Democracy - once again we see the results of democracy mixed with ignorance. The HST is a killer of new construction. In a city where new homes can cost anywhere from $500.000 for a tiny apartment to $6 million and more for new houses, 12% was always an idea that could only hurt developers and buyers. The HST should have been applied only to items that were already subject to PST. That would have been fair and avoided this complete mess. Who is going to buy new construction now? Builders who are getting ready to hit the market in 2012 are stuck. No changes until 2013? I just hope that some intelligent minds get together with Victoria and
1 - make changes immediately
2 - keep the HST on items that were already subject to GST+PST so that businesses don’t have to adjust their computer systems one more time
3 - keep real estate out of it. We had enough trouble getting buyers to pay 5% GST.
Real estate employs thousands of people, from construction, to lawyers, realtors, suppliers of everything from windows, to floor coverings and furnaces, swimming pools, interior designers, landscape designers. A little vision would go a long way to keep employment growing.

My new team member Jili who joined my Top Team last month already sold her first home to new Chinese immigrants. She is heading to China next week to meet with Chinese Immigration Lawyers and with new immigrants. She will take brochures of all my listings for extra promotion.

Just a quick clarification of the new immigration rules that came into effect July 1st 2011. The Investor category was capped at 700/year. To put this into perspective, BC has been approving and locating an average 6000 investor category immigrants a year since 2005. The cap for this year has already been reached and now will only be reset on July 1st 2012.
The Investor category must have a minimum net worth of $1.6 million and invest a minimum $800,000. (These requirements were put in place last year but did not reduce the number of applications).
The Government’s stated reason for the 700 cap is to reduce backlog. As old applications are still being processed there may be no material impact in Vancouver’s housing markets.
The Entrepeneur category is temporarily closed. The reason : in some visa offices there is an 8 year backlog!
As to skilled workers there is a cap of 10,000/year with a max of 500 per profession.

The July issue is the Global issue with the annual ranking of the World’s Largest Companies. The interesting part is : in this issue they also rank the 15 Best New Cities for Business. And Vancouver is at the top. “Smart labour, solid infrastucture, and potential customers”. And more specifically, in addition to having Canada’s largest and busiest port because of it’s proximity to both the US and Asia, and a strong movie industry, Vancouver “is positioning itself as a hub for fuel cell innovation. Earlier this year Mercedes- Benz said it would build a fuel cell plant just outside the city”.

Since January 1st, 276 detached homes sold over $3 million in Vancouver West and 134 in West Van. Also, In Vancouver West the highest price was $17 million for a house on Belmont that is being torn down. In West Van it was $10.2 million for a house on a double lot up on the hill. West Van is catching up but still so far behind Vancouver…
If we look at sales over 9 million, only 2 in West Van so far this year, 8 in Vancouver West.

The TD bank came out today with one of those uninformed, alarmist forecasts about real estate prices set to go down by 10%. Then they proceed to talk about the impact of higher interest rates on a $400,000 mortgage. How pathetic. The best and most compreensive analysis of real estate prices came from CIBC a few days ago. The writer understood about micromarkets, hot markets, high end sales, and average prices. Just a delight to read. Too long to quote, but I will sum it up in a comment by one of my Chinese clients. As the big movers of real estate in Vancouver are Chinese from Mainland China , an explanation of their culture says it all when it comes to the future of real estate in Vancouver. Here goes “Chinese pay cash for real estate. They don’t care about interest rates. They believe in the value of real estate and will never sell at a loss. They would rather keep their real estate and leave it to their children”. Way back in 1986 when I started in Real Estate I remember writing a low ball offer for a buyer interested in a property owned by a Hong Kong Chinese. In those days all offers were low ball. Real estate was only just starting to recover from the terrible crash of the early 80’s. The Chinese seller was a wealthy lady that had moved here ahead of the pack and had bought a stack of properties.
Her reply was ” I would rather keep it. Real estate is like diamonds” Never forgot that. In fact the only things I regret in life are the properties I sold and the ones I didn’t buy.

As of July 1st Canada is tightening immigration rules. I don’t know the details yet, but one of my clients from Mainland China just e-mailed me saying:
“In China ,people are lining up at the Canadian Embassy to hand in their applications before July 1st because after that day Canada is introducing new standards”
I always wonder about restrictions imposed in China. Her reply to that:
“Chinese immigrants that come to Canada never tell the Chinese Government. They don’t need to, so the Chinese Government cannot do anything as long as Canada is willing to take in more immigrants. The only restriction in China is dual citizenship - it is not allowed”

I watch these market indicators every day - in fact several times a day. As of this minute there are 481 detached homes for sale in West Van. In the past this would indicate a slow down in the market. However, the “right” properties are still selling with multiple offers often for higher prices than our estimates. West Van sales since January 1st were 687 units, including attached.