BCBusiness

bcbusiness.ca January 2016 BCBusiness 51 NO. ADDRESS SALE PRICE SALE DATE 31 6891 $3,718,880 27-Jan-13 32 7037 $2,770,000 01-Aug-13 33 7087 $5,780,000 28-Jun-12 34 7162 $2,480,000 23-Jul-12 35 7288 $3,770,000 01-Nov-13 36 7538 $2,268,000 20-Jul-14 37 7586 $1,700,000 23-Jan-13 38 8033 $5,250,000 11-May-12 39 8083 $2,411,000 03-Mar-14 40 8416 $3,610,000 14-Apr-14 properties," says Greg Carros, a west-side realtor with Engel & Völkers. "Years ago we would see doctors, lawyers, but not at these price levels." According to Vivian Li, a realtor with Sutton Realty—who sold $120 mil- lion worth of property, around 60 per cent of it in Shaughnessy, in the first nine months of 2015—it's business own- ers, often with overseas interests, who are buying in Shaughnessy. Many of those buyers tend to be immigrants, largely from Mainland China, say realtors—although that's not universally the case. "Newcomers don't immedi- ately buy a $5-million house," says Peter Saito of Sutton Realty. The majority of buyers are trading up, he says: having lived in Vancouver for a few years, they or their family are now moving from a $2-million property to that $4-million or $5-million one. And according to BCBusiness's research, 30 per cent of the homes sold on Angus Drive between 2012 and 2014 were paid all in cash. Regardless of whether they're wealthy immigrant investors or residents trad- ing up, taking out a mortgage or paying in cash, what they all have in common, say realtors, is that they don't shop at open houses and they rarely use MLS. The vast majority of sales are generated through referrals: friends, relatives, busi- ness partners—and immigration consul- tants. Indeed, several realtors credit at least half of their business to referrals from immigration consultants. Many of those consultants, based in Vancouver and Toronto, run websites and operate booths at exhibitions in Shanghai and Beijing; along with brokers from Austra- lia, California, New Zealand and Europe, these firms market the Canadian lifestyle (clean air, good schools and a house with a yard) with links to listings. One firm—Can- Reach (Pacific) Consultants, with offices in Richmond—even offers to set up prospec- tive immigrants with a mortgage broker, realtor, lawyer and local furniture store. The steady stream of wealth-based migrants is a replay of the wave of Hong Kong migrants who came in the 1990s, says David Ley, a UBC professor of geography and author of the 2010 book Millionaire Migrants. "The motive of many of Vancouver's business immigrants then was to get Canadian citizenship, which they regarded as an insurance policy against the mainland's political interference in Hong Kong and Taiwan," says Ley. But the level of wealth involved has gotten "a lot deeper" since the 1990s, says Ley, and the process of immigration a lot easier—streamlined by consultants with savvy marketing opera- tions and faster document translation. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 ANGUS DR GRANVILLE ST GRANVILLE ST GRANVILLE ST ANGUS DR ANGUS DR ANGUS DR W 43RD AVE W 45TH AVE W 47TH AVE W 49TH AVE W 52ND AVE W 54TH AVE W 57TH AVE W 58TH AVE W 59TH AVE W 60TH AVE W 61ST AVE W 62ND AVE W 63RD AVE W 64TH AVE W 68TH AVE W 66TH AVE W 65TH AVE EAST BLVD MARGUERITE ST NO. ADDRESS SALE PRICE SALE DATE 21 5926 $3,988,000 21-Jun-14 22 6026 $3,298,000 06-May-13 23 6036 $7,960,000 18-Aug-14 24 6349 $2,980,000 08-Sep-14 25 6369 $3,693,000 27-Aug-13 26 6506 $1,680,000 06-Jul-14 27 6518 $1,590,000 23-May-12 28 6708 $2,800,000 02-Feb-12 29 6828 $3,650,000 17-Dec-14 30 6886 $3,338,000 27-Feb-14

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