A new Vancouver study is fuelling fears about foreign buyers driving up housing costs in the city. But it's also sparking backlash from critics who say it unfairly targets Chinese people.
The case study, released on Monday, tracked home sales in some of Vancouver's most expensive areas, including the West Point Grey, Dunbar, and University Endowment Lands neighbourhoods.
Between August, 2014, and February, 2015, a total of 172 single-family detached homes were sold in those neighbourhoods.
And in those sales, 66 per cent of buyers had "non-anglicized Chinese names," according to the study, which was written by city planner Andy Yan.
The results have fuelled debate over whether more needs to be done to restrict or tax foreign home ownership in one of the most unaffordable cities in Canada.
In a statement on Facebook on Monday, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said "reasonable actions are urgently needed" to address affordability in the city.
The mayor proposed a "speculation tax" to slow down the practice of house-flipping, and a "luxury housing tax," which could then be funnelled into funding affordable housing.
Robertson also said the provincial and federal governments need to help the city with more comprehensive data on international investment and absentee ownership.
However, the mayor cautioned against scapegoating a particular race or ethnicity.
"What we don't need, however, is the blaming of any one group of people – or any one kind of last name – for the challenge of housing affordability," Robertson said. "This is a public policy issue, not a race issue."
Other critics have also spoken out against the study, noting the small sample size and arguing that other cities around the world—many of which do not have high rates of Chinese immigration—are also facing housing affordability crises.
In the study, Yan justifies his decision to look at "non-anglicized names," noting that other researchers have used similar methods to draw conclusions about populations.
The study works with "an assumption that a non-anglicized (name) suggests a newer immigrant," Yan wrote in the report.
Researchers did not look at whether Chinese buyers might also be Canadian citizens, or examine "non-anglicized" names from other ethnic groups.
And though the study notes that some names may have been "miscategorized" as foreigners, the researchers said they felt the impact on the data was minimal.
Yan told CTV Vancouver that the high percentage of Chinese people buying expensive homes suggests that they are not working in Canada and making Vancouver wages.
"When the properties hit over $3 million we are talking about over 75 per cent that were bought by folks with non-anglicized names," he said.
In a city where the median income for 22-55 year olds with a Bachelor degree is $41,981, Yan said most local professionals just wouldn't be able to afford such expensive homes.
The study was released on the same day that the Royal Bank of Canada said it would remove an internal mortgage limit for newcomers, in order to meet a rising demand for foreign investment in Canadian housing.
With files from CTV Vancouver
