Re: VREAA's prediction being wrong, it's quite striking to note what happened to the CAD since 2012. That's when the price of oil started falling and it really went down further. What's interesting is to plot the price of Canadian places in USD or CNY for the last many years. The gains of the last five years aren't anywhere near as spectacular when viewed that way. CAD$1 went from something like US$1.08 to US$0.74 today. In the same time-frame, China instituted far greater capital controls, driving far more money out of the country.

Foreign money was always a market contributor in the Lower Mainland, but it's footprint exploded on that timeline. Prior to that, it was at least possible to pretend that people in the top 1-2% of earners could buy detached houses in the city. (Now, that's no longer the case for even those earning $225k/year without pre-existing equity, help from the bank of mom and dad, or a lottery win.)