Our guest on the show this week is Brandon Harding of NAI Commercial who focus on multi-family and development in Vancouver.

We're quick to judge landlords, developers and owners of multi-family properties here in Vancouver when in reality we need these people if we're going to solve the housing crisis. With each new tax and each new restriction, buying a rental building or becoming a landlord in Vancouver becomes more risky and more expensive.

Here's why:

More landlords equals more rental properties thus increasing the supply.

More supply equals less demand.

Less demand equals lower rents. And more security for renters.

Though it's a basic economic principal we're not quite sure our municipal or provincial governments seem to understand. So housing prices continue to rise and renters continue to experience little security despite an influx of new taxes and restrictions.

Clearly something is not working.

Money laundering. How do people do it? Why can’t we catch them? And is this actually something that’s increasing house values in Vancouver?

Here to discuss that is former tax lawyer and current white collar crime investigator, Chris Thompson. 

Links we talk about:https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015f-6d73-d751-af7f-7f735cc70000

Quick disclaimer - Chris Thompson's views are his own and he is not speaking on behalf of the government.

A year ago we released our first Hawaii episode. At that time I was just starting the process of buying a home in Kona. A year later, we've made the purchase and have just finished spending 3 glorious months on the island.

Here to talk about how I bought a home in Hawaii is my realtor, Kevin Walmsley. His episode last year was one of our most highly listened to episodes ever. So this one will not disappoint.

After traveling around the world we take the show back to real estate obsessed home town of Vancouver. Our guest this week is Greg Dent, Keith's best friend of 20+ years, real estate agent extraordinaire and the guy who's been running our team as Keith travels the world.

In this episode we talk about: what happened in the market in 2018, what new government policies are effecting home values this week and what we expect to see in the market in 2019.

Stuff we talk about in this episode - "An independent report done last year found excessive regulation in Vancouver, including taxes, zoning regulation and development charges, can add a staggering $600,000 to the cost of a new home."

Concluding our series on New Zealand real estate this week we sat down with Kiri Barfoot, Director of Barfoot and Thompson - recently awarded the title of Best Real Estate Agency in The World by International Property Awards in London, and agent Tim O'Shea.

Barfoot and Thompson is an impressive company. Professional and established with probably the nicest office space we've ever seen.

Weeks prior to this New Zealand announced it was banning all foreign ownership. As we've learnt from these interviews, there's a number of loopholes to this "ban" and it may not be having the desired effect, though it's still a bit too early to tell.

Happy 2019! We're continuing our real estate world tour and this week we're in New Zealand speaking with documentary film maker Bryan Bruce. I met Bryan two years ago when he interviewed me in Vancouver for his film Who Owns New Zealand Now.

The story of New Zealand real estate is very similar to the story of real estate in Vancouver and other expensive and desirable locations in the world. So we've devoted two episodes to fully understanding how the industry works in New Zealand, the challenges they're facing now and what they're doing to address those issues.

Only a few weeks before our trip to New Zealand the government decided to ban foreign ownership altogether in order to combat their affordability problem. Before making the change Bryan spoke to parliament about his findings. Though he denies it was because of his documentary alone, it was certainly something taken into consideration when the government made their decision.

Enjoy.

We're back this week with the conclusion of our Australia series. This week on the show we're speaking to Buyer's Advocate Cate Bakos in Melbourne.

We're back this week with the conclusion of our Australia series. This week on the show we're speaking to Buyer's Advocate Cate Bakos in Melbourne.

G'day mate! We're in Australia this week where real estate might as well be the national sport. In this episode we sit down with award winning agent and real estate auctioneer, Glen Coutinho to discuss how real estate is transacted in Australia and the similarities between the Melbourne and Vancouver real estate markets.

Here's a clip for Glen in action.

Be sure to tune in next week when we sit down with a Buyer's Advocate to hear about what the auction process looks like from the buyer's perspective.

We're back in Canada this week checking out the other coast. In this episode I speak with Peter Brouwer with Royal LePage Atlantic. Peter has been selling real estate in Halifax for 20 years now and is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to all things Halifax.

Yet somehow he knows very little about the lobster economy...