Property management
Avison Young wants a slice of Metro Vancouver’s property management pie.
The firm manages approximately 13 million square feet of properties in Greater Toronto and recently appointed industry veteran Craig Bradshaw to oversee development of a property management division in Vancouver and potentially all of Western Canada.
“I’m starting out in B.C.; if we get opportunities and think we can grow it into Alberta and the rest of Western Canada, that’s the long-term goal,” he said.
Bradshaw will serve as Avison Young’s vice-president, property management, starting from scratch to build a management portfolio and develop a team that can serve owners. He’ll have backing from the company’s existing property management team in Toronto.
“We’ve got the structure and the systems and the procedures and a lot of the people in place,” he said, “so it’s relatively easy to launch an operation in Vancouver.”
Bradshaw was previously vice-president, business development, for Arcturus Realty Corp. in Western Canada. Prior to Arcturus, he oversaw commercial property management operations in B.C. for Colliers International. The move by Avison Young is less a shakeup in the market than a sign of the city’s appeal among investors. Bradshaw notes that private investors accounted for 79% of investment transactions in the first half of 2013. Unlike major institutional buyers, many don’t have their own in-house property management teams.
“One of the big opportunities for us to move in is when there’s a sale transaction,” he said. “[Property management] helps us offer more of a full-service package.”
BIV research indicates that Bentall Kennedy (Canada) LP, Beedie Group and Ivanhoé Cambridge/Centre CDP Capital are B.C.’s three largest commercial property managers.
Colliers is the largest brokerage engaged in property management, with 7.12 million square feet under management.
Jones Lang LaSalle Real Estate Services Inc. opened a Vancouver office in 2011 with plans to establish a property management division. While it manages properties in other markets, it has not yet fulfilled long-standing hopes to offer these services in Canada. However, in 2012 it won the facility management contract for HSBC Bank Canada premises in Canada in a coup that significantly boosted its presence in Metro Vancouver.
Client management
An integrated approach is also key to real estate agent James Upton’s launch last week of Legacy Luxury Lifestyle Inc. and its “comprehensive, dynamic and holistic ‘gateway marketing’ platforms.”
Legacy operates several subsidiaries, including Uptown Luxury Lifestyle Inc. as well as Shang Cheng Luxury Lifestyle Inc. and its Beijing-based counterpart, Shang Cheng (Beijing) International Consulting Co. Ltd. The companies had their official launch last week in Vancouver, which Upton said is the template for the business.
“It’s the full, comprehensive approach to experiential real estate, and that incorporates anything from immigration to wealth management, private banking, private health care,” he said.
Upton said Legacy has signed up 50 members who will be the core for the network of relationships Legacy hopes to develop through its subsidiaries.
“It’s relationship-based; it’s all about the connection,” he said. “We’ve hand-picked certain individuals and companies that we feel are like-minded, very committed to attracting that target demographic, and they wanted to be on the platform right from the onset.”
The demographic includes mainland Chinese buyers, who place a high value not only on real estate but also on networks of relationships that yield referrals and mutual prosperity.
“They want to know who that extension is of themselves,” Upton said. “Buying opportunities will come and go, but the true essence of the platform is it’s about the individual and/or company that someone can build a strong working relationship with.”
Rent spread
The surge in office development in downtown Vancouver is heralded as bringing needed relief to tenants, and Jones Lang LaSalle Real Estate Services recently issued some curious rent numbers that seem to bear out the point.
Rents in Vancouver max out at $65.91 a square foot, the second highest in Canada. But the average rent in the Metro Vancouver market – also the second-highest in the country – is half that, at $32.39 a square foot. This is within a dollar or two of the average in Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal.
The significant spread in Vancouver reflects, in part, the divergence in the quality of available office space.
