Looking to ride real estate to riches

Marcie Good , Globe & Mail,  May 26, 2006

Wouldn't we all. And that's the lure of Ozzie Jurock's popular spring conference, LandRush 2006. The real estate analyst, buyer and author has built a well-known business based on dispensing advice, and here he and five other speakers are discussing different aspects of acquiring and managing property. "You can create any life you want if you invest in real estate!" Mr. Jurock promises. "I believe that."

A host of vendors outside the conference room are also offering their market know-how, with tantalizing promises like How to Buy an Apartment Building with No Money Down! One representative from a land development company makes a pitch on constant replay to each attendee that wanders by: "We allow small investors to piggyback on our expertise." Realtor Randy Friesen, whose truck bears the logo If you've got money in the bank, you're not buying enough real estate, hands out a phone book-sized package of properties he considers potential cash-flow generators.

As April's housing stats show, residential prices in the Lower Mainland continue their meteoric rise, with an average house in Vancouver fetching $844,444. That's up 25 per cent from a year ago, and almost double its worth from 2001. A typical condo now sets you back $327,000, showing a similar acceleration.

With those kinds of numbers in circulation, it's no wonder that people are looking to get into the game.

It doesn't take long for Ms. Bains, who is working out mortgage numbers with a pencil as she listens to the first speaker, to realize that the promise of income without work is beyond her means. Calculating a $400,000 mortgage with 25 per cent down, she would need a tenant to pay at least $2,000 a month to cover the payments and property taxes. That still leaves maintenance costs. "I think you really need to do your investigating," she says. To that end, she's thinking of taking Mr. Jurock's upcoming $1,497 weekend seminar course which promises a nuts-and-bolts guide to investing.

With his folksy charm and corny sense of humour, ("Forecasting is never easy when it's about the future," he reminds the crowd,) Mr. Jurock regularly packs halls like this. He kicks off the day with reminders of his "picks" from previous years. In 1999, he liked Pender Harbour and the Sunshine Coast. In 2000, he liked the Fraser Valley. In 2001, he encouraged people to buy resale downtown Vancouver condos for $195 a square foot. Going through the past five years, he names dozens of small towns and cities across the province as evidence of his solid record. "Even if you had bought one thing," he says, "you would have done well."

This year, he likes anything within a two-hour radius of Vancouver, pointing in particular to Chilliwack, Harrison and Agassiz.

Small cities with a solid employment base are good bets, such as Kamloops, Victoria, and Nanaimo.

He "loves" Kelowna, Vernon, Salmon Arm and Osoyoos, and thinks that Cranbrook (with its brand-new airport) will grow. His list goes on to name all waterfront properties, recreational "sleepers" like Chemainus and Campbell River, and he soon sounds like he's reciting an atlas of the province.

He gives no easy answers, pulling out time-worn axioms instead, like "trend is your friend." Those who came looking for an insider tip ("Do you think Richmond will flood?" someone asks the panel at the end) would have been disappointed. He even claims ignorance on whether Vancouver's real estate market is in the middle of a bubble, about to be burst by rising interest rates. "I've listened to 35 years of talk of collapses and deflation and inflation," he says, "and all I know is if you bought a house in 1960, it's 20 to 35 times higher than it was then."

The get-rich-slow approach is also espoused by Rudy Nielsen, another Landrush speaker whose Niho Land and Cattle Co. owns and develops land across the province. Most of the properties he is selling now, like oceanfront lots in the Queen Charlotte Islands and a subdivision in Prince George, are parcels he bought two decades ago. "I never make a decision until I'm sure it's the right one," he says. "I sit back and wait."

With skyrocketing prices in the Lower Mainland, more investors are looking at the small towns and remote places across British Columbia, according to the numbers collected by his market analysis company, Landcor Data Corp.

Mr. Nielsen also shares the story of his own spectacular bankruptcy in 1982. "I was cocky and brash," he says, recounting how he bought more than he could handle and found himself $1.5-million in debt. After his wife and banker left him, he took his dog and a canoe to a lake as far north as he could go and lived in the woods for two weeks. He told himself then that if he ever got out of that mess, he would help other people avoid it.

On Monday after LandRush, he is asked to fulfill that vow. All day he fields calls from people asking if they should buy. "I can't believe some of the people who have phoned me up and said, 'I've got a mortgage on my house, I've got a second, and I'm making payments with my credit card.'" he fumes. "I just feel sorry for those people. For Chrissakes, keep a safe fort!"