Much is said of the allure of Vancouver for Asian home buyers. Here a poster quotes Richard Russell, and gets his own wife’s opinion regarding the relative attractiveness of Vancouver & La Jolla, California, from a Chinese perspective. -vreaa
This from space889 at vancouvercondo.info 13 Jan 2010 10:26 am -
“I note more and more Asians here in La Jolla. I’m thinking that in ten years La Jolla will be half Chinese. Consider this — you’re a Chinese multimillionaire (and there are thousands of them). You want to get rid of a lot of the dollars you own. You search the world — the best weather on earth is in San Diego’s La Jolla. La Jolla is situated right on the Pacific Ocean. The US is a free country, nobody goes to jail and is tortured because he announces that Obama is a dud. Home prices in the US are cheap compared with prices in China. La Jolla is a bargain, and probably a good “safe haven” just in case things don’t go right in China. ” - [Richard Russell, DOW Theory Letters, the largest fee based subscription investment newsletter in the world.]
“I showed this to my wife and her reaction was “no I think rich Chinese people will still to Vancouver because Vancouver is way more famous in China than La Jolla”. I think partly this is due to at least 2 popular Chinese TV series based in Vancouver. Also when she moved to Vancouver back in 2000, it was in part because people posted online in China that Vancouver is paradise on Earth – however she absolutely hates the rain and the dark cloud here, really disappointed. She much prefer sunshine. She thinks Hawaii is really paradise on Earth. As well, she said even more important is the fact that virtually all the rich people in China who can buy a $1.5M/$2M+ houses in Canada or US got at least a good portion of their money illegally or at least in an extremely questionable manner. What does that mean? It means that they would prefer Canada over US because they don’t need to worry about being deported back to China with their $$! Yeap that’s right! Her believe that there will be lots of rich Chinese people coming over and buying up expensive real estate is simply because Canada don’t deport criminals with lots of money back to China! So our absolute best advertising for Vancouver and its real estate is not “Best Place on Earth”, ski and golf in the same day, mountain and ocean view, democracy & human rights, etc. Nope. Our best advertising apparently is people like Lai Changxing who don’t get deported and gets to live high on the hog here 
And I have absolutely no comeback for that argument, especially now Canada has the approved tourist destination status which makes coming to Canada easier than before. So yeah come winter Olympics, we might indeed get a flood of rich Chinese people coming over and buying expensive houses and moving prices up even more. However what else these people might bring over, that’s an entirely different question.”
I know more than a few Asians who are selling their properties in Vancouver and moving back to Asia. Given the significantly lower cost of living there and the windfall they get in by selling their Vancouver holdings, they can live like kings back in Asia for a fraction of the cost.
It is also a myth that all Chinese immigrants are evading authorities. Check how many flights go to China from YVR every day. I’m sure many have a nest egg saved up but living in Vancouver is a life of a pauper compared to what people of this net worth can afford in their countries of birth.