From the Wall Street Journal

In recent months, Chinese real estate buyers have flocked to the Seattle region, reports Wall Street Journal (WSJ) staffers Laura Kusisto and Kim Mackrael.

Those buyers were once fond of nearby Vancouver, but in August the Canadian province of British Columbia imposed a 15% tax on foreign investment in the city. The tax applies to anyone who isn’t a citizen or permanent resident of Canada and buys a home in metro Vancouver, WSJ reports.

That move has had a chilling effect. Web searches in China for Vancouver properties dropped 37% in December compared with a year ago, according to Juwai.com, an online real-estate portal that targets Chinese home seekers.

Seattle, by contrast, is red hot. Searches for Seattle properties in China jumped 125% year-over-year in November, after increasing 71% in October, according to Juwai. They rose 1.8% in December.