6 - Friday, November 3, 1989 - North Shore News INSIGHTS Stop ‘boltholers’ from distorting home prices HOMES FOR SALE ON THE NORTH SHORE and elsewhere in Greater Vancouver are today regularly listed in Hong Kong. Don’t blame the realtors or their clients. It's still perfectly legal — like fluorocarbon spray cans, disposable diapers and clear-cut logging. West Coast residential property sells quickly for top dollars in the jittery colony that’s now only 86 months away from being run by the guys who cleaned up Tiananmen Square. At the same time, many of the new owners are in no hurry vet to cross the ocean and live in their B.C. boltholes. Until Beijing’s axe falls, there’s still lots more money to be made in their capitalist cornucopia. FACES OF CHINA...Photographer Irwin Oostindie with one of his studies of life in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations this summer. His works were on exhibit at last week’s opening of the new North Shore Arts Centre. Meanwhile, the loca! real estate industry acknowledges that Hong Kong gold is presently a major factor pushing Lower Mainland prices clean through the roof and shattering the home ownership dreams of many younger B.C. families. It’s also hitting the elderly mid- die-income tenants paying quite substantial rents, who are being driven from their homes by the wrecker’s ball as new owners demolish their apartments to make way for more lucrative develop- ments. Nothing racist about these comments. They would apply equally if tocal home prices were being knocked completely out of whack by a flood of rich Ameri- can, British or German buyers. What we have here is the distortion by outside forces of a market which, in the normal course of events, is predominantly internal. Aside from special situations like that of Hong Kong, droves of people in one part of the world simply don’t buy up masses of private homes in distant countries whose economies and lifestyle are quite different from their own. Imagine, for example, the effect on Indonesians or Zaireans if THEIR housing land was being NEWS photo Cindy Goodman gobbled up wholesale by a stampede of wealthy Canadians. Like Hong Kongers and Ameri- cans, Canadians hail free enter- prise in general as the dynamo of prosperity. Except that Canadians have always still remained what you might call 90 per cent free enterprisers — recognizing that a few vital areas of life like health care, education and looking after our seniors cannot safely be left to unbridled market forces. An affordable roof over one’s head is as vital as any of Canada’s cherished social services. For that reason today’s exceptionat cir- cumstances make it high time to curb real estate free enterprise in just one small aspect. Welcome offshore investors (the more the merrier!) in B.C.’s indus- trial and office real estate. Wel- come qualified immigrants inten- ding to become Canadian citizens who buy homes here to live in. But BAN ABSOLUTELY the sale of B.C. residential property to absentee foreign ‘‘boltholers’’ with no plans for settling in Canada in the foreseeable future. Charity begins at home — not in Hong Kong penthouses. TAILPIECES: Opening 7 p.m. next Tuesday, Nov. 7, at the West Van Ferry Building to mark Remembrance Day is a collection of memorabilia depicting the his- tory of West Van Legion Branch 60. Put together by John Moore and Peter Cherry, it continues on STILL time to catch tonight’s Galiano Trio concert in Horseshoe Bay (see iter). display there from 11 to 5 daily until Nov. 12... Featured this month at West Van Library are acrylics by Italian-born North Van painter Giovanni Bitelli, member of a family of celebrated artists... ‘The traditional Christmas Craft Fair at North Van’s St. Thomas Aquinas School, 541 West Keith — which draws over 2,000 people each year — goes again Sunday, Nov. 5, from 10 to 4, with items in all media from 80 professionals throughout southwest B.C... Con- grats to West Van’s Dr. Barry McBride, just named Dean of Science at UBC where he’d taught since 1970... And a few $12 tickets for latecomers will still be on sale at 7:30 p.m. at the door for to- night’s (Nov. 3) concert by The Galiano Trio in St. Monica’s Church, Horseshoe Bay. WRIGHT OR WRONG: The dif- ference between a career and a job is roughly 30 hours a week. AOROORARC DAL Foreign affairs ONCERNS over the saie of local properties in USED TD GENERATE LARGE ATIOUNTS ) OF ELECTRICITY FOR CONSITIERS. DEPENDING ON DEMAND. FLOW CAN 5 * ssp: BE TURNED UPOR DOWN AT WILL. Consumes: USED TD GENERATE LARGE AINOUNTS OF CASH FOP PONER OOMIPANIES. DEFENDING ON DEMAND. FLOW Hong Kong and elsewhere out of the country should be directed at property owners and the federal government, not at real estate companies or their agents. Controversy erupted recently over plans by local re- altors to take residential and other real estate listings from the North Shore and elsewhere in B.C. to a special Nov. 15 to 19 Canada Housing and Living Ex- position in Hong Kong. Local politicians have said local housing prices, which are already prohibitively expensive for most first-time buyers earning average wages or even above-average wages, will be further inflated if area properties are sold to wealthy foreign interests. And while it can be argued that prime Canadian real estate is being sold to the highest international bidder while Canadians themselves cannot afford to buy homes in their own country, real estate companies and their agents are only doing their jobs. They are acting for property owners who decide what price they want for these properties and who they will sell them to. Realtors would be remiss in their duties if they did not pursue all opportunities to sell the properties they are charged with selling. it is wp to the federal government tc establish better tax breaks and other financial assistance for Canadian home buyers and stiffer taxation and tighter regulation for their non-Canadian counterparts to help even the odds in ensuring that Canadian properties remain in the hands of Canadian citizens. aS aeraungeag eens Publisher .. Peter Speck Managing Editor... . Barrett Fisher Associate Editor Noel Wright Advertising Director . Linda Stewart North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111, Parag’aph Ii! of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mat! 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