Is there any connection between the 2010 Winter Games and a remarkable recovery in the Vancouver housing market?

Even though he had never purchased real estate before, Alym Abdulla could sense that the market was heating up as he began looking at downtown condos last spring. The 24-year-old pharmacist started seeing suites in late March, and before long he realized that some of the units were receiving multiple offers from prospective buyers.

“I must have looked at close to 50 places,” Abdulla told the Georgia Straight in a recent interview in his living room. “I put in offers on two other places that didn’t go through because the market started to pick up.”

He said he was getting discouraged and was ready to quit when his real-estate agent, Stu Bell, recommended that he check out a home in a Bosa-developed building near the corner of Hornby and Smithe streets. When Abdulla entered the suite in the middle of May, he was immediately impressed by the layout, which featured two full bedrooms, each with an en suite bathroom, on either side of the living room. “The thing that really sold me on this place was the balcony,” he said. “It’s quite large. It makes you feel like you’re not trapped in your little shoebox downtown.”

Abdulla ended up paying the $508,000 list price. He said he bought then because he wanted to take advantage of the low interest rates. With a smile, he acknowledged that some of his friends look at him differently now that he’s a homeowner: “One of my friends who I used to live with in university, he’s like, ‘I feel since you bought your place, you’ve matured. You’ve completely changed in the way that you are. Before, we used to live the student lifestyle. Now, you’re always cleaning your place. You have plants. You look after them. You’ve even got a cat now. It’s like you’re an adult.’ ”

Last spring’s brisk sales activity took some people by surprise after what Vancouver real-estate marketer Cameron McNeill has referred to as the “terrible nuclear winter in our industry”, which took place in 2008 and early 2009. Now as the Olympic Games are fewer than 100 days away, the sales-to-listings ratio has increased fourfold compared with a year ago. Buyers have been snapping up units in large, competitively priced projects like District in the South Main area and the Maynards Block on the southeast side of the Cambie Street Bridge. Last month, 680 condos sold in Vancouver through the multiple-listing service, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, a 186-percent increase over the 238 condos sold in October 2008.

Demand has been especially heavy for single-family houses in upscale neighbourhoods. For example, the real-estate board reported that on Vancouver’s West Side, the benchmark price—almost $1.5 million—was up 16.6 percent in October over the same month in 2008. In West Vancouver, the benchmark price for a detached house was up 24.6 percent over October 2008.

So is all this activity in Vancouver’s real-estate market linked to the city hosting the 2010 Winter Games? McNeill, whose company sold more than a billion dollars worth of real estate in the hot housing market of 2007, told the Straight by phone that he thinks the Olympics will keep a spotlight on Vancouver and magnify positive fundamental factors driving demand. According to him, those factors include low interest rates, a shortage of downtown land, good provincial government stewardship of the economy, and a safe investment climate.

McNeill added that it doesn’t make sense to compare Vancouver—which has broad international appeal—to other Winter Games host cities. “Who wants to live in Salt Lake City?” he asked. “Lillehammer? I didn’t know that town existed until the Olympics happened.”

McNeill also claimed that Vancouver is the second most densely populated city in North America behind New York. He believes that our compact urban environment, coupled with a stable financial system, makes Vancouver a safe place to buy. In his eyes, this makes the city “the Swiss bank of international real estate”.

“I think the Olympics creates a euphoria,” he stated. “But honestly, I don’t think prices are going to spike preceding or post-Olympics significantly. I believe the real benefit of the Olympics is going to come in one, two, three, four years down the road.”

Bob Rennie’s company Rennie Marketing Systems has sold billions of dollars of real estate in Vancouver. Rennie also told the Straight by phone that he always thought the effect of the Games would be felt in future years. “It’s after the Olympics that we’re going to see the impact on real estate,” he said, noting that Vancouver has a much higher profile than other recent Winter Games host cities. “I don’t believe that anyone ran back to Turin or Lillehammer or Salt Lake City…to buy a secondary residence or to move the family to safety or to move some money to safety. Vancouver is on the map. We’re a world city. We’re a brand.”