Thread by @VanREflipflops

“But it’s believable to me that if there’s an impact it would be at the higher end (of the market),”

Let's say 700 homes change hands per year in West Side #Vanre. Avg say $3M per home. That's roughly $2B per year.

Say half that is mortgaged, so

vancouversun.com/business/local…

2/ $1B per year COMPLETELY controls the West Side mkt.

Last week I tweeted about ONE woman from China 10 years ago looking to buy 4 to 5 homes on the West Side. If she's looking to spend $20M, all you would need would be 49 more of her to completely buy up every

3/ property that hits the mkt on the West Side.

Is that so inconceivable?

50 wealthy Chinese investors could come in a corner the West Side #Vanre mkt.

Now throw in the local money launderers as in the #VancouverSun article and you need even less than 50 Chinese buyers.

4/ And THEN, add in the frothing local speculators, spurred on by cheap money from Canadian banks, and it was like throwing gasoline on the fire.

"But that's JUST the West Side of #Vancouver you say"

Well, where do all the local buyers who would have bought on the West

5/ Side go to purchase a home now that they cannot compete for or afford West Side homes? Do they simply not buy?

Of course not. Likely they go east young man. To East #Van

Now in East #Vanre you have the "regular" buyers PLUS the West Side buyers. And guess what happens to

6/ East Side #Vancouver prices? Yup. ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

Which is exactly what happened.

So ya, it is not only "believable that there was an impact" THERE WAS A MASSIVE IMPACT.

Want to know what is happening now? Why the crash?

Just think in reverse.

Remove the Chinese buyer and

7/ and who are the Chinese flippers from 2016 going to sell to? Not locals in most cases.

Prices at the top end crater.

Then remove a lot of the money laundering through West Side #Vanre (I believe that with all the attention on ML right now, it has to have died down

8/ somewhat.

Finally, remove the local buyer who is not only tapped out at historically low interest rates, but the value of the homes that they would have used to leap frog up the market have now crashed in value AND are very difficult to sell.

#Vanre became a ponzi scheme and

9/ the jig is up.

If the lying realtors and developers up in #WestVanre who swore up and down that foreign money was but a small part of the mkt, are now crying poor because the new taxes have taken the Chinese buyer out of the market, and now they are claiming this segment

10/ accepted for 50% of sales!!!

So which is it?

My gut tells me that it is tighter currency controls in China that is the main reason for the drop in buyers. And if that is the case, we'd better make further changes to foreign ownership laws before this ponzi scheme

11/ gets a second wind if the Chinese can all of a sudden get their money to Canada again.