The Blockbuster Is Alive And Well...
…And living in Burnaby. CBRE’s Lance Coulson tells us the sale of two concrete apartment towers in Burnaby’s Metrotown, a high-rise in north Surrey and a walk-up apartment building in Victoria (total of 633 apartment units), is the largest multifamily deal so far in 2014 in B.C. Lance was a broker in the deal but unable to comment on specifics. Other reports say the seller, Calgary-based Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust sold the portfolio for $140M.
"I have been doing this for 16 years and this is the biggest multifamily deal I have seen in B.C. in that time," he says. "From a broker's perspective, you could work a whole career and never do anything like this." (The proverbial white whale.) Vancouver is considered the most expensive and competitive multifamily market in the country. It is difficult for companies like Boardwalk to acquire mass in this sector in B.C., because of a lack of product, so it's challenging to get the yields they need to be accretive, Lance says. In a statement, Boardwalk says they are concentrating on developing multifamily properties in their core markets, especially Edmonton and Calgary. Snapped is the property in Surrey.
