To the editor:
If you cannot afford to buy either a condo or home, then you must rent if you want or need to live in Vancouver. A 85-year-old home in Kitsilano, on a 50-foot lot, sold for $4.5 million.
These prices are not real. Sure it is supply/demand but who is the demand and we know that the supply is limited to what is there.
In China, there are so many very wealthy families and I believe that they want to relieve themselves of some Chinese money and store some Canadian wealth in offshore areas—i.e. Vancouver real estate. China is a large population with a dictator/communist government which can collapse at any time if conditions are right. Having a large amount of wealth inside China may make the rich think of being diversified i.e. Vancouver. Vancouver already has a large Chinese community thus it is inviting for them to think this way.
Our B.C. government does not require registering country of origin for home buyers that seem to be bidding prices up in Vancouver. Real estate businesses are in control of their own policing so they seem to just do what makes them the most money—i.e. flip sales.
This is the same as letting children into a candy store with no rules.
Are the correct taxes being collected on these sales? If not then we are all being cheated.
Does Revenue Canada not look into this? Maybe all real estate papers should be required to have owners’ SIN numbers so our governments will know who owns what and if they are Canadians or foreigners.
BC Children's Hospital and VGH just said that they require more nurses. My friend contracts to a company in Vancouver—he cannot get enough trades people to do work in Vancouver due to the high costs of living there. Well, just maybe that is also what causes a nursing shortage too.
Vancouver will soon be a large beautiful city filled by rich foreigners (not Canadian citizens or landed immigrants) but who will be the people doing all the service work? Maybe it will be all empty homes?
It is a problem and the sooner it is properly regulated and policed the sooner the pain will go away. This is simple math and math is not forgiving once the pain starts.
Jorgen Hansen, Kelowna