A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. "Jon Buss has spent the past four months looking for a home in West Vancouver. Every weekend, he and his wife attend an open house in the exclusive coastal community. They have noticed the same thing at almost every one: 'No one ever shows up.' Often it’s just them and a realtor, sitting in a chair, staring at his phone. 'Nothing is moving.'"

"He’s seen prices in the municipality – where 38 homes are listed for sale with asking prices north of $10-million – drop as much as a million dollars in a single day. He’s in no hurry: 'Why buy in a falling market?'"

"Jeff Carnahan moved to the Lower Mainland from Calgary eight months ago and has been looking to buy in the $1-million range. He meets the same buyers at weekend open houses. Like him, they are sitting on the sidelines for now. 'Sellers are still in denial about the housing correction and unwilling to come down from that mythical price they have been banking on. Buyers, meanwhile, know the home is no longer worth what they are asking,' he says. 'It’s very clear we’re on the back end of a bubble.'"

"Realtors point to West Vancouver as the epicentre of a correction that began some 18 months ago. This month, a mansion in the oceanside municipality sold for less than half its 2016 sale price of $11.2-million, a $6-million loss for the former owners."

"Realtor Mark Wiens is already seeing his clients swallow hefty losses. One recently sold for $2-million below the home’s assessed value of $6.2-million. Another turned down an offer of $4.5-million for his West Side house last year only to relist it this year for $2.39-million. The 'best-case scenario' for a third is a $350,000 loss on the condo bought for $1.1-million less than a year ago."

"Mr. Wiens tells his clients on the city’s exclusive West Side, where he figures prices of high-end homes have fallen as much as 35 per cent since peaking in 2016, that they are throwing away at least $5,000 every day that they delay listing. 'There’s no way this market is coming back any time soon,' he says."

"While snacking on a $13 slice of avocado toast, the former landscaper, who speaks Mandarin, offers a one-word prediction for the year ahead: 'Pain.'"

"This cooling off was, to some degree, orchestrated. At the provincial level, successive governments introduced several measures of their own to bring the market to heel. First came the foreign buyers’ tax – 15 per cent of a home’s purchase price. The new, NDP government bumped it to 20 per cent. And transfer taxes were increased to 5 per cent from 3 per cent on homes valued north of $3-million, ostensibly to discourage flipping."

"For its part, Vancouver introduced a municipal tax on empty homes to punish investors who leave their houses vacant – again, to discourage speculators and to provide more rental housing. Realtors may loathe these measures, but a large majority of British Columbians support them, according to polling by the Angus Reid Institute."

"The focus on foreign buyers, especially from China, has been intense – and not without reason. A recent Statistics Canada report found that one in five B.C. condos built in 2016 and 2017 were purchased by foreigners. Vancouver is a favourite destination for wealthy Chinese to park their money."

"But Chinese courts have begun jailing nationals for life for moving money illegally out of the country, part of Beijing’s ongoing effort to halt currency outflows, Vancouver lawyer Christine Duhaime explains. Ms. Dumaine, an expert in financial crime, represents Chinese banks hunting fraudsters in Vancouver. Many took out sizable business loans in China, then fled to B.C.'s Lower Mainland, where they hid the money in real estate, shielding their identities through corporations, numbered companies and trusts."

"The city has also become a favoured destination for global cartels and gangs that have been washing billions of dollars through B.C.’s housing market and casinos."

"Like it or not, their identities will be made public next month, when the province unveils a residential property registry. This could be another reason for the flood of new inventory, up 46 per cent over last year, says Ms. Duhaime: Some owners may be trying to get their money out of the market before the disclosures take effect."

"It’s a strange new world for Vancouver, where the median cost of a home tripled to $1.5-million in the decade before 2015. This leaves the market in the strangely precarious situation of 'resting on the shoulders of local income earners,' says realtor Aaron Best. Vancouver, he says, was the first city in Canada to see foreign speculation spike its housing market. It now looks set to become the first to find out what happens when that wealth pulls out – and no one is left to replace it."

"It’s a new era for condo marketers and developers trying to offload presale condos, too. Gone are the days when long lines of people in sleeping bags snaked around presentation centres ahead of launches. Back then, speculators saw presales as quick wins: They could put down 20 per cent, flip the contract for a steep gain before the project’s completion, then reinvest the earnings in several units in another tower, Mr. Best says."

"Last week, developers behind 17 projects, representing roughly 5,000 units, announced they are postponing their sales launches in the hope that market conditions improve. Other developers are offering buyers hefty discounts and bonuses to realtors, according to flyers sent to local real estate agents."

"While there is plenty of misfortune to go around, it turns out there’s also plenty of delight. On social media, more than a dozen or so accounts have sprung up to document the collapse of the market and highlight speculators’ biggest faceplants. 'SOLD FOR 50% BELOW PEAK MKT VALUE IN DUNBAR! EPIC CARNAGE.' It goes on to detail the total losses of the flipper caught holding the bag. '+$2M LOSS IN 11 MONTHS' another begins, celebrating yet another speculator’s legendary fail."

"And what is bad news for realtors, speculators and over-leveraged homeowners is anything but for bailiffs, auctioneers, bankruptcy lawyers and entrepreneurs ferreting out ways to cash in on the downturn. For the first time in his 30-year career as a foreclosure lawyer, Lindsey Goldberg is seeing defaults hit the Lower Mainland’s two most exclusive communities: West Vancouver and Vancouver’s West Side. 'These places are home to very wealthy individuals – people who had no problem getting their hands on money when they ran into trouble.'"

"Consumer insolvencies are up 6 per cent from a year ago, the largest jump since the Great Recession. But it can take several years for rising rates to be reflected in default figures, says Blair Mantin of Sands and Associates, B.C.’s largest insolvency firm. This quarter, the firm recorded its busiest January, February, March and April in its 30-year history. Mr. Mantin has hired five new staff, expecting business will continue to grow in tandem with the correction."

"Last year, the Bank of Canada increased its benchmark rate three times to 1.75 per cent. For the first time in 25 years, households are going to be renewing their mortgages at higher rates. That’s when things are going to get ugly, Mr. Mantin predicts. 'You’re going to start seeing people who are maxed out and can’t get refinancing.'"

"He thinks Vancouverites are still in denial about what lies ahead. We’ve reached our Wile E. Coyote moment, he says, referring to the hapless antihero of the Road Runner cartoons, a dreamer puffed up on arrogance and ambition. 'We’ve run off the cliff and just looked down. Beneath us, there’s nothing but thin air. Right now we’re pumping our legs, hanging in the wind.'"