Vancouver is unique simply in the degree of unaffordability. After Hong Kong, its housing is the most unaffordable in the world.<p>The elephant in the room is why this happened. Everyone talks about &quot;foreign speculation&quot; but in fact most of it is not speculation at all. In mainland China, Vancouver is widely viewed as a nice, quiet small city, good for students and the elderly. It&#x27;s not a place for &quot;real&quot; work. So they buy homes there to live in part-time. It is quite normal to have the mother and child live in Vancouver while the father continues to work overseas. They pay almost no Canadian tax as they have no Canadian income. With their child in school, the parents can eventually claim permanent resident status thanks to the family reunification program and they can expect to retire in Canada. It&#x27;s a big win for them and they see nothing wrong with it.<p>To summarize: introducing vast income inequality has distorted the Vancouver housing market and drastically altered the demographics of the city, making it unaffordable for the people who actually work and pay taxes there.