Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
continuing rise of Vancouver house prices soon became entrenched.
Interprovincial migration into British Columbia did occur as the province
largely escaped a deep recession in much of the rest of Canada, a deliver-
ance that was repeatedly attributed to inflows from the Pacific Rim. But
what this assessment overlooked was that while provincial numbers
were inflated by domestic migration, few of these gains were felt in Vancouver,
for metropolitan numbers were scarcely impacted, with net domestic migra-
tion into the metropolitan area at a very low level or negative (Figure 5.8).
Any gains from interprovincial migration into Vancouver were offset by
intraprovincial migration, losses from the metropolitan area to other parts
of the province (City of Vancouver 1995). But these cancelling out effects
were lost to casual analysis that was able to gain the headlines and influence
popular opinion.
35
Just as house prices in Vancouver had moved upwards in 1987 with the
rise of post-Expo immigration to Vancouver, so they fell back after 1995
with significant return migration, and a substantial drop in immigration
numbers, the decline in both flows linked to the fear of the assets disclosure
legislation, optimism about Hong Kong's post-colonial status and, by the
last quarter of 1997, the Asian financial crisis. The relationship between fall-
ing house prices and a reduction in net immigration, especially from Hong
Kong, was crystal clear to realtors and even to the larger economic elite who
might have gone along with the Laurier reports denying the role of East
Asian investment in pushing up the market a few years earlier (Walkom
1997). In July 1997 the
Wall Street Journal
's Property Report noted 'For
Vancouver the Party is Over: Hong Kong Money is No Longer Acting as
Stimulus' (Carlisle 1997). Price losses between the third quarters of 1996
and 1997 were led by drops of 26 percent and 16 percent respectively in the
prime neighbourhoods of Shaughnessy and South Granville (Chow 1997i).
It was evident that not only was 'an exodus' occurring but also that off-
shore investors were liquidating their Vancouver holdings to offset financial
losses in Asia (Chow 1997g). By 1998 real estate agents were also pointing
to the sharp drop in the Hong Kong residential market as another reason
for withdrawal of investments from Canada, by providing opportunities for
bargain hunters betting (wrongly as it turned out) that the market would
recover faster in Hong Kong than in Vancouver. Arguing against the foreign
assets disclosure law, the Vancouver Board of Trade cited the erosion of
foreign investment and declining property prices as wealthy immigrants,
unsettled by the disclosure rules, left the city and returned to East Asia
(Gibbon and McCarthy 1997). Overall there was general agreement that
the exodus of people and capital as the 'China tide' ebbed was leaving espe-
cially the top-end housing market high and dry. By the summer of 1998
prices in Vancouver's Westside had fallen to the point that for the first time
in a decade a family with two working professionals could afford a starter
