The buyers: Biao Liu, a postgrad marketing student at George Brown, and Sharon Liu, an instructional designer at the Metrix Group consultancy, both 26.
The story: Sharon’s father is a big believer in property ownership. “Owning a piece of land is part of Chinese culture,” Sharon says. So when she and Biao got married in July, there was no question that they’d be looking to buy. They set a budget of $400,000 and told their agent, Robert Atkinson of Century 21, that they’d consider anything, anywhere in the GTA, as long as it wasn’t a condo. After checking out places in Markham, Aurora and Richmond Hill, they decided there was nothing decent for $400,000 that wasn’t a condo. Since they were going to have to up the ante, they opted to limit their search to Markham, which they liked for its Chinese restaurants and grocery stores—and Sharon’s dad liked for the investment potential.
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