The Lower Mainland is a pretty big area, the farther away from Downtown Vancouver the lower the rent is. I rent a small 3 bedroom house in North Delta (about a

The Lower Mainland is a pretty big area, the farther away from Downtown Vancouver the lower the rent is. I rent a small 3 bedroom house in North Delta (about a 45 minute drive to Downtown, no traffic. An hour if I park and take the train in) and pay $1550/m plus utilities. The house we're in sold for $510,000 in November 2014. It's very difficult for any single family to purchase even a small house. The vast majority of the houses being sold where I live are being bought by Indian/East Asian families who will buy the property, tear down the house, build a massive multi-tenant home, and have 2-3 families living under the same roof. A ton of property is also being purchased by people who will get their Canadian residency, buy a bunch of property, but still live in China. The property is bought as investments and left empty. There are area's downtown that are full of 20+ story residential buildings but yet the streets are deserted since nobody is actually living there. Super strange. Everyone who I know who's purchased recently is either buying townhouses or condo's (which are both still going for a minimum of $350K for 1-2 bedrooms).