Bob Rennie doesn't fit the mould of a big-shot real estate broker, much less one of the most successful in North America.
He shows up for a breakfast meeting in running shoes. He is addicted to his BlackBerry, but he doesn't own a computer at home or in his office. Ultimately, he'd rather be known for his international art collection than real estate. Granted, he eats almost all his three meals a day in restaurants, and takes the wheel of a flashy Bentley when his driver isn't around. But he is chatty, goofy and frank, given to hugs even if he hasn't met you before, and he has the youthful energy of a kid on a candy high.
Donald Trump he's not. But you'd be hard-pressed to meet a Vancouverite who doesn't know Bob Rennie's name. The 52-year-old's celebrity is more a statement about the character of the city than the man himself. With some Vancouver luxury condos now selling at more than $2,400 a square foot, real estate is sexy business.
And with sales of between $1.2-billion and $2-billion annually, Bob Rennie Marketing Systems represents Vancouver's biggest condo projects: the Woodward's building, the Shangri-La (in both Vancouver and Toronto), the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, Fairmont Pacific Rim, and the Olympic Village. His company's projects have also spread to Edmonton, Dallas and Seattle.
Mr. Rennie has worked extensively with major Vancouver developers Peter Wall and Ian Gillespie. Businessmen, politicians and lobbyists want his ear. To consumers and developers alike, he is a name brand.
"But it's all about the consumer," he insists. "Without the consumer I'm out of business, my client is out of business. So as long as I keep delivering, then our brand gets insured, and that brand should help the developers."
Mr. Rennie, who lives in a 3,000-square-foot condo penthouse in the hip downtown False Creek neighbourhood, also personifies what distinguishes the Vancouver real estate market from other North American cities. Vancouverites have made urban condo living a way of life, not merely a means to owning property.
"We have been, for the last 10 years, the fastest-growing residential downtown in all of North America, regardless of size," says Larry Beasley, former director of planning for the city.
"And that in part is because of the realization of an extraordinary opportunity by people like Bob Rennie to create a residential downtown. And for me and him, that's condos and rentals and everything that comes together to get as many types of people downtown as possible."
Mr. Rennie sells entire buildings, which works out to between 1,000 and 2,000 condo units per year. He makes a point of buying a suite for himself in each building — a little something for his three grown children's inheritance.
"More than 80 per cent of all sales west of Main Street are condos, so I picked the right industry," he says with a laugh.
"Condos became socially acceptable quicker here than in other cities," he adds.
Hemmed in by ocean and mountains, rapidly growing downtown Vancouver has nowhere to go but up. And with 2.5 million residents in the Lower Mainland, and the 2010 Winter Olympics about to push Vancouver further onto the global stage, the city is quickly developing urban areas outside the downtown core.
Mr. Rennie has long maintained that the only other direction for development is eastward, which means making the beleaguered Downtown Eastside district livable.
"Larry Beasley and I stood on a pedestal back in 2000, 2002, and said, 'The city's moving east,'" he recalls. "It didn't take a genius. It had nowhere else to go."
