It’s no secret that Toronto and Vancouver are laughably unaffordable cities. Seriously, it would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Not only are Toronto and Vancouver – which consistently rank at the top of ‘best city in the world’ lists – attracting newcomers from coast to coast, but they are also hot spots for foreign investment. This has caused demand to far outweigh suppply for housing.
Desperate for a solution to the affordability crisis, Vancouver introduced a foreign buyers tax in 2016. The move has put pressure on Toronto to consider a similar measure.
Well, don’t expect demand for Canadian real estate (and prices) to drop anytime soon. According to JD.com, a Chinese Amazon-style online retailer, Chinese buyers will soon be able to buy Canadian properties “like milk, shoes and other household goods.” JD.com is the country’s second-largest online marketplace behind Alibaba and boasts 300 million customers. It also wants to develop a network of drones to deliver seafood in Canada.
The real estate offerings are available through an agreement with real estate portal Juwai. Homes in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States will also be listed.
“This partnership with JD.com is incredibly innovative and exciting on one level, but on a deeper level it simply represents Juwai.com continuing to fulfill its core mission of helping Chinese become global residents and investors,” said Juwai CEO Carrie Law, whose company has 2 million home listings worldwide.
The news comes shortly after China recently loosened regulations that made it difficult for Chinese nationals to buy foreign real estate. The restrictions have built up an appetite for foreign real estate investment that can now be satiatied with the click of a button.
In related news, the average price of a one-bedroom rental in Toronto is now $2,020 a month. The average rent for a one-bedroom in Vancouver is $2,000 a month.