Dan Cui is part of a
new wave of Halifax home buyers that’s helping to energize the city’s real estate market. Dan was born in China but in 2018 she decided
to immigrate to Canada and ended up moving to Halifax.
She didn’t know much
about the city when she first decided to move here and start looking for a
house. “I told all my friends that I was going to the countryside,” says Dan,
who is a sales professional and a mother of three.
She had developed
strong ties to Canada after nearly two decades of travelling back and forth
between Beijing and Vancouver. In fact, her two youngest children were born in
Vancouver and she had already purchased three condos there. But Dan knew little
about Canada’s East Coast until she decided to immigrate under the Atlantic Immigration Pilot (AIP) in 2018. The AIP, a program run by the federal
government and the four Atlantic provinces, offers foreign skilled workers and
international students an easier and faster way to become permanent residents.
Affordability a key attraction
Foreign home buyers
used to be primarily drawn to Vancouver and Toronto. But that’s changing. A 2018 market
analysis by Juwai.com, an international real estate website in China, showed
markets in Quebec, Alberta and Nova Scotia were becoming increasingly popular among Chinese property buyers and
investors. From 2017 to 2018, inquiries for residential purchases in
Montreal grew by 35.7 percent, in Calgary by 234.4 percent and in Halifax by 394
percent. The increase was largely the result of people looking for more
affordable homes and wanting to avoid paying high foreign buyers taxes in places
like Toronto and Vancouver.
It was the tax on foreign home buyers in Vancouver that
initially convinced Dan Cui to immigrate to Canada. She was living in Beijing when she was accepted
into the AIP program and started planning her move to Halifax. That’s when she
reached out to Joe Zhang, a Halifax-based RE/MAX nova agent, to help her find a
home for her and her family.
“This kind of program
encourages people to immigrate,” says Joe. “I would say a big portion of my
clients came from this program.” Since he started working in real estate three
years ago, Joe has helped a lot of newcomers find homes. Many of his clients are
from China because he knows the culture and speaks Mandarin, Cantonese and
English.
Joe was born in
Shenzhen, one of China’s largest cities, and came to Halifax for university.
After he graduated from Saint Mary’s University with a finance degree, he decided
to stay. Now he’s a big fan of his adopted city and eager to help others find
their ideal Halifax home. “I’m like the tourism guy,” says Joe. “When they come
to Halifax there’s no guide to tell you how to buy a house, so I work with them
step by step.”
A
growing city with “real potential”
Joe believes Halifax’s
growth is just starting and that the city has “real potential.” He tells
clients buying a house here is a good investment, even if they aren’t investors
but are just interested in finding a home to live in.
Most of the Chinese
clients he’s worked with so far are looking for a single family home instead of
a condo, which is likely what they lived in if they moved here from one of
China’s bigger cities. “They want something different
with a house and land.”
That’s what Dan was
looking for when she started texting Joe from Beijing asking about the best
neighbourhoods for her to buy in. “I felt confident he was looking for the
right house for me,” she says. “For me it was location, location, location.“
She planned to move
here with her two youngest children and enroll them in the Halifax Grammar
School. She wanted to find a house close by so they could walk and ended up
buying a home that backed on to the school. Dan initially intended to renovate
the house but the extensive renovations she wanted to do were going to be so
costly that it made more sense to rebuild. She’s hoping her new home will be
finished by next summer.
Dan may not have known
anything about Halifax before she arrived, but it didn’t take long for her to
feel at home. “I feel this city is already involved in my heart and in my life
and in my blood. I’m so proud that I live here.” She recalls seeing the city
from the water during her first ferry ride and feeling that she’d made a good
choice. “The weather was beautiful and I fell in love with Halifax
immediately,” she says. “I felt it was good to raise our children in this quiet
city.”
Are you interested in
making Halifax your home? If so, we’d
love to hear from you. Contact us today and one of our experienced agents will
be happy to help you find the perfect house for you and your family.
