Chinese buyers are snapping up some of the most exclusive real estate in the Lower Mainland. The latest jaw-dropping sale was a $51.8-million mansion on three lots, one of which overlooks the ocean.

The Point Grey home was owned by Don Mattrick, currently the CEO of San Francisco-based game maker Zynga and one of the highest paid tech executives in the Bay Area, and his wife, Nanon De Gaspe Beaubien-Mattrick, a tech investor and heiress to a Canadian telecom fortune.

Land title documents show the property, which boasts a 10-car garage, sold in mid-December to Mailin Chen, a businessman from mainland China, and his Vancouver-based company, Chunghwa Investment (Canada) Co. Ltd.

Chunghwa Investment was incorporated in March 2010 and has an office on Howe Street in downtown Vancouver. No one answered phone calls there. A Mandarin-speaking assistant at Chen’s personal Yaletown office said he was not available. A phone call to the home at 4787 Drummond Drive, which is now listed under Mailin Chen’s name, was also not answered.

Chen has bought and sold other luxury properties in Metro Vancouver in the past, including selling a $10.5-million Shaughnessy home at 1550 Laurier Ave. in December. According to land title documents, the purchaser of that home was restaurateur Ling Xu.

The Drummond Drive sale, which was not listed and not conducted by real estate agents, is one of the richest in the B.C. housing market. It comes as agents say the market is hopping with interest from buyers with cash from mainland China. These include Canadian citizens, residents and visitors. (Starting in 2012, Chinese nationals could apply for a 10-year, multiple-entry visa, giving them new mobility to travel and buy property here.)

The $51.8-million price for the house on Drummond Drive was almost as much as the most expensive Vancouver home, which is assessed at $57 million and owned by Lululemon founder Chip Wilson.

But there is similar clamouring for prime properties on a smaller scale in other pockets of the local real estate market.

Recently, a house at 1383 West 32nd Avenue in Shaughnessy went into contract for $8.01 million, or $2 million over the asking price of $5.99 million.

In West Vancouver, 118 houses were sold in February, compared to 63 the year before for an increase of 87 per cent. Of homes in the $4 million and higher category, agent Clarence Debelle of Royal Pacific Realty estimates some 75 per cent went to buyers with ties to mainland Chinese money.

The burst of activity is due primarily to wealthy Chinese, some of whom live in Canada but keep or earn money overseas, and others in China who are looking to buy abroad.

They are motivated by conditions such as low interest rates and the Canadian dollar’s decline against the Chinese yuan, which is linked to the U.S. dollar and is up 18 per cent over the past 18 months.

Vancouver Realtor Manyee Lui puts it into a working person’s math: “If you were looking at a house that was $800,000 Cdn. (in yuan terms), now you can look at something for $1 million Canadian.”