Yeah it's real. I was wondering when this would get posted on here.
The city of Vancouver itself is fairly small in area, and yeah it's expensive. Most people are paying for the land, and will destroy those little pieces of crap to put up a nice house. There's a lot of foreign money coming in which has kept the prices up, and the Olympics have created more of an international market for real estate here.
The thing is, a lot of those houses are owned free and clear for 2 reasons: 1. Foreigners with tons of cash buy them outright. 2. They were actually bought for $40k way back in 1952.
It is proving to be an interesting city development problem. Now only super rich people can afford places in Vancouver, yet teachers (like my wife) and policemen still have to work here, and the emphasis is on public transit and sustainable living. It's hard for a teacher to feel as part of the community if she has a 1 hour commute, so now a lot of the city planning is going into approving development projects consisting of a few towers and townhouses, where the townhouses are really expensive, the lower parts of the towers are cheaper units with laminate counters, basic appliances, and carpet, and the higher units are the teak floor/granite counters/subzero freezer units, which allows doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers to live with the teachers, cops, and plumbers that work in their neighbourhoods.
People here are starting to realize that a bunch of condos/townhouses with no yard are perfectly fine to raise a family in, so long as there is a generous helping of park space nearby and a local train station, or the ability to walk to work.