“Surreal Estate”
Last month, I wrote about the influx of “shadow flipping” in the Vancouver real estate market; The Walrus, a stellar Canadian magazine, just published Kerry Gold’s insightful, alarming, and haunting deep dive into what’s happening in my hometown.
It’s worth a look — especially for the issues it raises around British Columbia’s historically vile treatment of Asian immigrants, and how that has colored the current discussion of foreign investors in Vancouver’s market. These investors, whose numbers continue to grow, are able to pay far more than the average middle class Vancouver family; they also continue to live abroad, meaning the homes are left empty. Vancouver, residents say, is slowly becoming a ghost town.
Property managers or real-estate agents will visit to turn on taps and pick up flyers. In the days before Halloween, uncarved pumpkins appear on front porches; Christmas wreaths hang from doors until someone thinks to remove them months later. Lights are on timers, curtains drawn. The knock-on effect has been devastating. Without foot traffic, local businesses are failing. And with so many young families clearing out, Vancouver is mulling the closure of twenty-one schools.
There aren’t any answers in Gold’s piece, and I don’t have any either. Bubbles burst — perhaps this one will too. But who will be left living there when it does?
As for Vancouver, there is not much reason to go there — unless you work in the service industry, or you go to UBC, or you have guests in town. It’s a knock-off Monaco, where you drop by to enjoy the view.
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