The making of a middle class housing crisis: the ideology and politics of foreign real estate investment in Vancouver 2008 - 2018

This study examines the ideological and structural factors that underpinned the politicization of foreign investment in real estate in Vancouver between 2008 and 2018. In the span of a couple of years, foreign investment in real estate emerged from obscurity to become the dominant explanation of the housing crisis, and one of the most pressing political issues in British Columbia. Based on a content analysis of news articles and secondary literature, this paper argues that the focus on foreign property investment shifted the public discourse about the housing crisis toward homeownership issues, and the experiences and needs of middle-class residents. It created a binary between deserving and undeserving homeowners along class and race lines, and constructed speculation as foreign, rather than as an inherent part of the local capitalist real estate economy.