1 of 1 2 of 1

B.C.’s finance minister has said the government will soon have concrete data on the role of foreign buyers in Vancouver’s real-estate market.

“I’ll be in a position very quickly now to release the first trounce of that data, so we won’t be speculating any longer, and we’ll be able to make decisions based on facts,” Mike de Jong said on CKNW this morning (July 4).

A few minutes later, he specified that information would be released “in a week or so”.

“You’ll no longer have to speculate, nor will I, which has been one of the great disadvantages to these conversations, because it is based on speculation,” de Jong added.

The provincial government announced it would begin collecting the data in question during a speech de Jong delivered in the legislature last February.

“Beginning in the summer, individuals who purchase property will need to disclose if they are citizens or permanent residents of Canada, and, if they are not, their citizenship and country of residence,” he said.

Interest in who is buying homes in Vancouver has peaked as prices have skyrocketed.

According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV), over the past three years, the benchmark price for all residential properties in the region it describes as Greater Vancouver increased by 48.3 percent. As of May 2016, the benchmark price for a single-family detached home on the city’s East side was $1.46 million. On the West side, the benchmark price was $3.44 million.

Much of today’s interview with CKNW’s Jon McComb focused on questions of investors from Mainland China and what impact foreign money is having on Vancouver real estate.

“I don’t think there is any question that Vancouver now presents an extremely attractive place for investment, not just from China, but from other countries in the world, other parts of North America,” de Jong said. “The evolution that’s taking place within Vancouver, the fact that we have become very much the international city that I think we aspired to be through events like Expo and the Olympics, this is happening. But I will say again, without dismissing the fact that some of that investment is coming from abroad, we should be sure and know how much.”

De Jong also addressed questions about Panda bonds, a financial instrument that the B.C. government recently began selling to investors in Mainland China under terms that see a safe return on investments in Singapore. Since the scheme’s launch last January, members of the NDP have raised questions as to whether Mainland Chinese residents could use the bonds to avoid Chinese financial regulations and invest in Vancouver real estate.

De Jong described the idea as “ridiculous” and maintained “there is absolutely no connection”.

“But it serves to confirm the degree to which now anything to do with China is viewed suspiciously by people,” he continued. “That whole notion of doing business with China, be it trade, in light of what is taking place in the real-estate sector, people are now viewing with a measure of suspicion.

“That is what’s at the heart of this conspiracy theory,” de Jong continued. “We issue bonds in Europe, we issue bonds in the United States…but I don’t get any of those questions with respect to the bonds that we issue elsewhere.”