Condo king says talk of bubble just a lot of hot air

By Brian Morton, Vancouver Sun

Bob Rennie, who spoke to a full house about the state of the Vancouver property market, said aging baby

boomers with billions of dollars in equity will become a much greater force in the condo market as they

increasingly downsize from expensive single-detached homes, and put money aside for their children.

Bubble? What bubble?

 

That’s Vancouver condo marketing guru Bob Rennie’s take on concerns that the region’s real estate market is

headed for a meltdown because of sky-high prices.

 

“It’s not a bubble,” said Rennie, director of Rennie Marketing Systems, in an interview following his keynote

address to the Urban Development Institute Thursday.

 

“With the 80 per cent of the [condo] market that traded in [Metro] Vancouver last year, you only needed a household

income of $52,800 to purchase. That’s not a bubble story.”

 

Rennie, who spoke to a full house about the state of the Vancouver property market, said aging baby boomers

with billions of dollars in equity will become a much greater force in the condo market as they increasingly

downsize from expensive single-detached homes, and put money aside for their children.

 

He also noted that the number of people between 55 and 64 will increase 38 per cent between 2009 and 2018,

those between 65 and 74 will increase 56 per cent, while those between 35 and 54 will only increase by 4.6 per

cent.

 

Because of that, he said, developers should shift their thinking into providing more larger one-bedroom condos to

accommodate the downsizing boomers.

 

“I believe the leaner, meaner baby boomer is the game changer,” said Rennie. “Baby boomers are sitting on $88

billion in equity in Greater Vancouver and they’re looking at their retirement years. That equity will be freed up over

the next 15 years [and] when they sell their home, they’ll buy down and help their kids.”

 

Rennie said there were about 19,000 condo sales in Metro Vancouver in 2011, and that while the average price for

80 per cent of those condos was $315,000, the overall average price was $427,000, which required an income of

$66,000 to finance.

 

Rennie noted that proximity to transit is paramount for today’s homebuyer.

 

“In the ’70s and ’80s it was location, location, location. In the ’90s through mid-’2000s, it was timing, timing,

timing. And from here forward, it’s transit, transit, transit.”

 

He also said that planning should be conducted more on a regional basis in order to make homes more

affordable.

 

Meanwhile, Tsur Somerville, director, centre for urban economics and real estate, Sauder School of Business at

the University of B.C., said he also doesn’t believe there’s a real estate bubble in Metro Vancouver, largely

because there’s not an explosion in housing starts – typical for real estate bubbles.

 

Somerville said that while the affordability numbers have been skewed by the higher end parts of the market –

“there were double-digit increases in Richmond, Vancouver, Burnaby and West Vancouver, with single-digit

increases everywhere else” — the region is still very expensive compared to other cities in Canada.

 

“Compared to other cities, that income [$52,800] gets you a house. Here, it gets you a condo. That means we’re

expensive, but that’s the reality of what we are.

 

“It’s still an expensive place to live, but it’s not unaffordable. You’ll end up smaller and further away from the core.”

 

bmorton@vancouversun.com

 

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