BCBusiness

58 BCBUSINESS MONTH YEAR PHOTO CREDIT S p e c i a l F e a t u r e Tony Quattrin, vice chairman for CBRE Limited, is well aware of the offshore influence in his specialty of commercial brokerage. "According to our data, the average Asian investment in the total commercial market between 2010 to 2014 was about 15 per cent, and in 2015 it jumped to 39 per cent, which is significant," he says. It's impossible to determine if that percentage will be maintained in the coming years, but Quattrin says it's easy to understand why investors are attracted to Vancouver. "Despite its recent economic problems, China has staggering amounts of capital to invest, and like all good investors they cast around for the most secure and reliable places to invest their money. Canada is very attractive due to its political and economic stability, transparency in real estate dealings, and of course livability; and within Canada, Vancouver and Toronto are the most desirable cities in which to do business." At the end of the day, however, Quattrin believes the edge still goes to Vancouver. "To my mind, Vancouver has the edge over Toronto in terms of future potential, since B.C. overall will be leading the country in economic growth thanks to LNG, Site C Dam, port expansion and other mega projects—and of course our lifestyle benefits are known around the world." Given our plethora of positive attributes, Quattrin is frustrated by the seeming proliferation of newspaper headlines about impending real estate bubbles bursting and other calamitous developments in his chosen field. "It's nothing new," he says. "I've spent three decades giving talks and presentations to separate the fundamentals from the hype, and in assessing where we are and where we're going in relation to other areas of Canada and the world, I'm honestly more bullish than ever about B.C." For example, while the rate of continued Asian investment in commercial real estate is unclear, countries such as China will continue to be vigorous players, "simply because getting their money invested is more important to them than yields, plus we're an easy jurisdiction to get into," says Quattrin. "And for the same reasons, we'll also soon become a magnet for Iranian investors as relations between that country and the West normalize." He acknowledges that Vancouver's commercial market has the lowest yields of any city in Canada. "But again, this is not a cause for concern, as the robust activity we've been enjoying clearly demonstrates. Property has always been expensive on the West Coast, hence the low yields, but the yields are still more attractive than returns in other sectors. In short, we're a safe bet." Gloomy newspaper prognostications aside, Quattrin marvels at the dynamism of Vancouver's commercial market. "We had seven new office buildings come on stream all at once in downtown Vancouver last year, and all of these facilities have entirely filled up. It's difficult to add supply in Vancouver, because we are constrained by factors such as geography and the Agricultural Land Reserve. The bottom line is it's likely that demand will continue to outpace supply in this part of R E A L E S T A T E

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