Housing Sales Down Amid Pandemic, While Residents Blame Foreign Ownership for High Prices

Housing Sales Down Amid Pandemic, While Residents Blame Foreign Ownership for High Prices
The downtown Vancouver skyline on March 30, 2018. A 2019 analysis showed that around $75 billion worth of residential real estate in the Vancouver area had ties to foreign owners. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck
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A recent survey done in British Columbia shows the frustration many are feeling over a lack of affordable housing in large urban cities like Vancouver and Toronto, and reflects the ongoing debate over what to do to mitigate the problem in the COVID-19 era.

The survey concluded that 78 percent of B.C. residents are supportive of an interventionist policy seeking to ban foreigners from buying real estate, which has been blamed in large part for driving up housing prices.