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How Asian buyers are boosting Vancouver's luxury housing market

The second-generation Chinese and immigrants who have recently established themselves in Canada form the main group that is feeding this year’s 70% jump in sales of homes over C$4 million in Greater Vancouver.

According to Vancouver's Chinese-language newspaper, Ming Pao and industry experts, those who have been in Canada for at least three years, as well as their children are the ones who are driving the luxury-home market revival.

The first Canadian conference of the Asian Real Estate Association of America in Vancouver caused quite a buzz when a much touted "luxury-home tour" was offered by the organisers – something which many agents and realtors jumped at to see Vancouver's cream of the crop in luxury homes in their bid to find something suitable for their own list of Chinese wealthy buyers.

What kind of property are these Chinese real estate buyers looking for?

According to industry experts, Chinese families prefer to have several bedrooms all on one level and each bedroom with its own bathroom.

“It’s the antithesis of the traditional boomer design,” he says, as the bus leaves Vancouver’s West Side and heads to the North Shore, “with the master bedroom on the top floor, the living room on the main and the children’s bedrooms in the basement,” said Greg Lowe, the organizer of the tour.

Greg Lowe, a real-estate marketer at Luxuryhomes.com, says Vancouver is one of five North American cities (the others being New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Miami) where Chinese buyers purchase luxury homes, because of the nice climate and cosmopolitan nature of the city with its existing Asian populations.

Canada is also more hospitable to foreign ownership than in the US and seen as a safe haven for families with good options for education. It has easy access ot the Pacific Rim.

[Image source: All Kinds of Awkward by Jeremy Lin on Flickr.com]