Andrew Ramlo, Vice President of Advisory, leads our consulting team by providing strategic support and a deeper understanding of community change. His enthusiasm for market intelligence and analysis has been the active ingredient behind his demographic and economic forecasts helping to manage community challenges and opportunities in the decades to come.
Joining rennie in 2016, Andrew has worked hand in hand with municipalities, provinces, First Nation groups, crown corporations, pension funds, and more, offering expert guidance steeped in data. Well-versed in how our city systems work and what we can do to improve them, Andrew is a sought-after public speaker, often sharing his insights on the data that may shape our collective futures. Beyond the traditional box of real estate, Andrew and his team go beyond the land itself– it’s the knowledge of the people and infrastructure that ties it all together which creates the full picture.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Andrew to learn more about the policies, opportunities, and challenges that are impacting our city.
Q: What are some of the top considerations and issues city planners are facing that could impact policy change?
From the planning side of things, it’s about housing affordability but that’s not new. There is now a broad recognition that we need to add more housing quickly. rennie has been saying this for a long time but there was a point in the not-so-distant past when there was a question as to whether there was a supply issue.
From the planner's side of things; what’s becoming increasingly important are the issues of equity and equality. The issues of availability and affordability are pushing people out of the city and region, what’s left are the people who can afford to be here which is a growing concern.How do you balance retaining the old with adding the new which comes at a higher cost? There’s also the added consideration of finding the space to put the net new homes. With a relatively limited land base, the emphasis lands on preventing forcing people out from their homes.
It’s also important to think about community vitality. Without growth considerations, a community is devoid. For example, capacity for schools, community centres, libraries, daycares, parks, senior centres, commercial infrastructure, and shops.
Q: What type of work are we doing with First Nations?
We are working with First Nations groups to bring a growing amount of leasehold residential to the market. This type of work is only expected to grow as a component of the housing market moving forward, but there is an element of education needed there to inform buyers about leasehold properties.
Q: What type of work are you doing that may be interesting to a realtor?
The City of Vancouver recently re-structured the densification of single-family lots which put upward pressure on land values, but that wasn’t their intent. When you look at the change from a per-unit basis, it’s actually made it more reasonable for individual homeowners. As a realtor, you’ll want to look to nodes within the city for those changes - the lots that are relatively well-located will have better potential for redevelopment.
Q: What are some positive changes we’re seeing in our province to address the housing supply crisis and where are we missing the mark?
BC has been a leader on the housing policy front, and the conversation has been broadened from affordability to availability. It started with the foreign buyer’s tax, then the vacant homes tax. Now there’s recognition that it's far more complex than merely those two things. We started down this road a decade ago, and now provinces and cities across the country have followed our lead.
All municipalities in BC are required to produce a housing needs assessment inventory every five years to address local housing needs. This year, the provincial government created a list of 10 municipalities that they felt were struggling to meet supply needs which have become the big policy drivers, with other metro cities following suit.
The missteps, on the other hand, fall under the federal government. When the national housing strategy was put in place a decade ago, there was talk of matching immigration targets to housing supply but those talks ended in early consultation. We’ve gotten to a point now where Minister Shawn Fraser and the Prime Minister recognize it was a misstep to increase immigration targets without adding supply.
Q: What is influencing the demand for land assembly today?
Quite simply, population pressures. The demand is pretty wide and varied throughout the region, and we can see the demand–in particular– along major arterials. Typically, a developer will come in and pick up low-density commercial and add commercial back in, plus a residential component. Granville Street and Cambie Street are great examples of how we can add density along arterials. They’re well serviced by transit so the city is happy with that.
Ten years ago, people said it wouldn’t happen along Main Street. Twenty years ago, people said it wouldn’t happen along Cambie. And now we’re seeing it happening along Fraser Street. Land assembly is going to be a growing segment of our market because we have limited land supply and it’s the way we can add density. There are very few brownfield sites; old industrial sites such as the Molson Site near our home office or Fraser Mills site in Coquitlam - the scale is impressive, and they provide opportunity for big multi-family redevelopment.
We are seeing strata wind up which will likely grow as the stock of our housing grows older and older each year. It is tough to get all those homeowners on the same page but, some of those older buildings from the ‘70s are reaching the functional end of life. The challenge is that those buildings make up a lot of our affordable housing, which would be taken out of stock to rebuild at higher density.
Thank you for your insight, Andrew. Stay tuned for part two of our conversation with Andrew Ramlo coming soon to the rennie post.
Learn more about our Advisory services: We use advanced market analytics and intelligent data to help individuals, organizations, and institutions make better investment decisions. By leveraging our diverse team of industry-leading experts, we can maximize potential returns and accelerate community transformation in a positive, meaningful way.
