Pursuits
Millionaire Boomers Decamp Vancouver Pocketing Housing Windfalls
- Seniors cashing out as Vancouver home prices soar to record
- Migration is pushing up real estate in retirement cities
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Jonathan Baker is the first to admit he shouldn’t be complaining about foreign investors driving up prices in Vancouver’s red-hot housing market. They helped the retired lawyer pocket millions.
Baker and his wife sold their five-bedroom home for C$3 million ($2.2 million) in December, a 100-fold gain from their purchase price in 1970. The house went for C$300,000 over asking after an offshore investor bid up the price and was later flipped several times to other buyers. Now the home sits empty in Vancouver’s Dunbar neighborhood, the telltale sign of a buyer who lives abroad, he says.