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Almost half the condos in Vancouver are not-owner occupied, and almost one-fifth of the detached homes.

The startling figures come from data released by the Canadian Housing Statistics Program on Tuesday.

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The federal study presented the numbers in more of a positive light, noting that “over half (54.3 per cent) of … condos … were owner-occupied, compared with 81 per cent of single-detached houses.”

But Simon Fraser University’s Andy Yan flipped the numbers around to show how the not-owner occupied numbers have skyrocketed during Vancouver’s housing crisis. Yan said in 2009 that a City of Vancouver study found 35.2 per cent of condos in the city were not-owner occupied. The new study found the number grew to 46 per cent in 2018, an increase of 10.8 per cent in a decade.

“It’s gone up substantially, city-wide,” said Yan, director of SFU’s City Program. “It will probably be even higher when you look at particular neighbourhoods.”