Mouwaa, YVR has changed a lot.
In the last 10 years, my house value has increased by 6x.
The areas I've been looking at in Melbourne were places close to the university, I honestly have no clue how the stuff works there, all I read on the realty websites are crap about the bank guaranteeing rent if you can't find renters or 'villas' being really small.....
Also, I had a friend who got in on the cadet program back in 07, he just bought a place in Chung Tung. I'm sure most people don't want to see the building that's raping them every morning, but for $250k US (at the time) it isn't too bad... 700 sq ft isn't huge, but it's manageable...