For sure lack of supply cause by Vancouver's natural geography is probably the first most important factor leading to expensive real estate - we have mountains to the north, water to the west, the US border not too far south, and then on top of that we have a bunch of waterways throughout all of the available land making it more difficult to travel from one area to another (i.e. bridges = bottlenecks). This causes most people to want to live in a small area - now inject tons of super rich foreigners into Vancouver and you get a lot of people with a lot of money wanting to live in a relatively small area.
IMO I think the ideal solution is to basically knock down all the detached houses on the "west side" and replace them with a bunch of higher density housing (townhouses and low/mid rise condos). Obviously this isn't too realistic but I think over an extended period of time (like 30 years) this will be the natural evolution. It's already starting to happen slowly but surely on Oak/Cambie/Main/Granville/etc.
So, consider this idea and the NIMBY's in Kerrisdale/Shaunessy/Point Grey etc. that want no change to the fact that it is zone for [HTML_REMOVED]80% SFH. These are the folks that bought back in the day and don't want it to change RE: density. Are these not the people deserving of blame as much as the off-shore $$ driving the westside SFH prices (and pulling the CoV's average way high) ?
I'm sorry, but the train has left the station on SFH near the city centre. It's not a reality for anything but lifestyles of the rich [HTML_REMOVED] famous so why defend it? Too many people wanting too little space. City staff should only allow SFH tear-downs on the westside that are leading to 4plex or greater density as the replacement.
NSMBA member.