Chinese key target in Vancouver condo push
Wed Jun 1, 2011
(Reuters) - In Vancouver, Canada's hottest real estate market, one marketer is targeting Chinese buyers with a new get-a-deal spin on condos.
Sales and marketing firm The Key launches an online real estate venture later this month, offering week-by-week discounts. The first one promises savings of C$200,000 ($206,000) if a buyer snaps up two condos rather than one.
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Its target market is Chinese investors, who have already driven up prices for multimillion dollar homes in a few Vancouver neighborhoods. [ID:nN01250393]
"They'll do whatever they have to do to get a deal. They're going to be a huge group ... and getting a better deal than they could ever get on their own," said The Key President Cam Good, who says his special offer web site is modeled on daily deal service Groupon.
Good tried a version of bulk selling in the soft Vancouver real estate market of early 2009, pre-negotiating a deal with a developer and selling 400 condos in 90 days, a move that helped spark a turnaround in the Vancouver market.
"There's a huge appetite for getting a deal, no matter whether the market is strong or not," he said.
The first venture will offer savings on two waterfront condo developments near Vancouver. In one, buyers can save C$200,000 or more by purchasing twin units that they can combine and customize into "a dream home in the sky."
Good hopes to be able to offer a new one-day deal every Saturday in a sales concept that could spread to other Canadian condo markets like Toronto and Calgary.
($1= $0.97 Canadian) (Reporting by Ka Yan Ng; editing by Janet Guttsman and Jeffrey Hodgson)
