How many B.C. homes are bought by investors? Heres what the data shows [Video]

Real estate investors made up approximately one-quarter of homebuyers across B.C. between 2018 and 2020, according to a new analysis from Statistics Canada.

The proportion was even higher among condo units, one-third of which were scooped up by investor-buyers during the same period.

While the analysis also looked at sales in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the highest rates of investor-buyers in census metropolitan areas across the three provinces were in Kelowna, Vancouver and Victoria, in that order.

Tom Davidoff, an associate professor in UBC’s Sauder School of Business, said the significant level of real estate investment highlighted in the data was unsurprising, particularly in Vancouver, given the combination of low interest rates and low property tax rates that applied prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve always said the instruction manual for Greater Vancouver has been to invest in real estate more than in productive activity,” Davidoff said. “That’s changed, of course, in the last …