Overseas buyers seem to be shifting their interest south
Posted September 15, 2016 8:36 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It seems some foreign buyers may have given up on getting into our white-hot housing market. A new report from Sotheby’s International Realty Canada highlights a change in searches on the Chinese international property portal Juwai.com.
In August, Vancouver saw an 81 per cent drop in searches for housing over $1 million compared to last year, while searches for Seattle increased 143 per cent.
“As someone who is strictly looking for property as an investment, then I think’s it’s reasonable that they would look at other areas instead of Vancouver at this point,” says the agency’s Managing Broker Polly Cordwell.
But she adds the reality is that many overseas buyers aren’t purely looking for an investment and Vancouver is still a world-class, very livable city. “They’re looking to either live here or eventually live here or move family members here.”
The agency says summer luxury home sales shot up 83 per cent in Toronto compared to last year, while sales of single-family homes over $1 million in Metro Vancouver fell 30 per cent in July compared with a year ago when it was 193. In August, sales were down 65 per cent compared with a year ago, falling to 95.
