According to a recent article in Business Vancouver, dozens of Burnaby, B.C., apartment buildings are being snapped up for demolition in a recent trend that’s driving per door prices above $350,000. At least three dozen apartment buildings have been purchased for demolition in the past year.

In Burnaby, there are no restrictions on tearing down low-cost rental apartments in favour of erecting brand new condominiums, unlike in Vancouver. In 2014, the city of Burnaby issued 419 demolition permits and are averaging 34 per month so far this year.

To date, the apartments purchased for demolition are mostly aging two- and three-storey wood-frame buildings with rents below the Metro Vancouver average. (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. cites that the average investor condominium in Metro Vancouver rents for $1,400 per month, and the vacancy rate for rented condominiums is 0.7 per cent, or about half that of the conventional apartment market.)

Old Burnaby apartment buildings outside of the top development zones sell for around $200,000 to $220,000 per suite.

According to the article, apartment blocks must fit a certain criteria to attract big-money real estate developers. Firstly, they must be located in one of the four areas designated as town centres under Burnaby’s official community plan (Brentwood, Metrotown, Edmonds and Lougheed, which all have SkyTrain stations). Secondly, they must cover a minimum of 37,000 square feet of land to qualify for the maximum floor-space-ratio (FSR) zoning of five.

So far the majority of Burnaby land development sales have been to investors from mainland China.