a person buying a condo in Vancouver generally isn't purchasing land, and if they are, then yes, the land might appreciate even as the thing built on it degrades over time due to a bunch of natural processes (e.g. wood decays)
someone buying a condo is absolutely buying land. That land just is split up across x number of condos. The appreciation that you get on the Condo, is the fact that the land is usually in a very ideal location. That's when the economics of "Going up" even makes sense.
