Flickr creative commons photo of downtown Vancouver by madisynaliya
In cutthroat real estate markets like Vancouver’s, Chinese ?Golden Week” in early October is auspicious. Chinese families often celebrate the week long national day holiday by visiting family or going on vacation. Sure as the rain, a flood of Chinese buying occurs in Vancouver during Golden Week each fall as flocks of investors and immigrants come to see real estate.
But, this year, Golden Week lost some of its sheen as a combination of Chinese capital controls and unsettled sentiment in the Lower Mainland softened high-end demand.

Apartments are still good, but the high-end houses have slowed down,? said Na An, an agent at Royal Pacific Realty.
Newly-released data show that even if luxury buyers and investors are thinking twice, the Lower Mainland market continues to surge. Sentiment amongst realtors is that market-cooling policies, like the foreign buyers? tax and more stringent mortgage stress testing rules, have made an impact on luxury single-family homes. ?The foreign buyers? tax slowed the market down, sure, but it didn?t crash it. We?re still in a strong market,? An said. ?Golden Week – from September 25 to October 10 or so – was good.?
The latest data shows both attached and detached home prices rising. The benchmark single family home in the Lower Mainland increased to more than $1.6 million dollars in September, a 2.5 per cent rise from August 2016, when the foreign buyer...