Well lets take a look at the article you posted
As a starting point, foreign investors (primarily chinese), are spending even more than the average. That's why it is an average. Lots of people are buying condos, but foreign investors are not coming to Vancouver to buy Condos.
20 days of data, im sure that is representative. It's not like rich foreign investors havent been shooting the market through the roof for the last 5 years.
And this is one of the other big problems. I know people personally who live in multi-million dollar houses and who pay absolutely nothing in taxes. Once again, I appreciate that anecdotal evidence goes so far, but I have direct, first hand experience in multiple different venues and have seen first hand how chinese buyers are affecting the market. A personal friend of mine (from hong kong) had a fire alarm activate in her condo at 4am. 23 people came out; the condo has over 80 units.
The fear of chinese buyers has nothing to do with people being in a rush to buy houses. It has effectively prevented people from buying houses entirely. I have no dog in the fight, but its ignorant to ignore the affect chinese people are having on markets in Vancouver and abroad. They are a problem in Sydney, San Fransisco, Vancouver and more. It has nothing to do with chinese people being bad or unsuitable to own homes, its a simple function of rich mainland chinese making a safer investment abroad than they can make at home. Additionally, they are moving to places that have larger connections to the chinese community. If you read your article, Richmond is a 14% foreign owner concern, and it is all Chinese.
I appreciate that there is a fear of scapegoating, but the numbers are not telling the whole story, and a tax on foreign owners who are speculating is the only solution.