Long walk home

Bob Rennie is standing on Richards Street. He has a white Starbucks cup in one hand and a BlackBerry in the other. The index finger of the bony hand wrapped around the paper cup is ticking like a metronome, pointing briefly to a lot across the street, then back to the aging house before us.

“There were two old houses there,” Rennie says. “My aunt used to own one of those: 1085 Richards. She was a bootlegger. Her name was Lina Pelle.”

Rennie pauses to sip his coffee. His bobbing finger does not. I wonder if Rennie, a man perpetually in motion, really needs any more caffeine.

“So in 1985, I brought her an offer of $85,000 for that house,” he continues. “She said no.”

The finger seizes. “This 50-foot lot right here just sold for $6 million.”

Rennie takes another sip. He watches me. He looks like he’s counting the beats, waiting for my
reaction.

“Six million?” I ask in disbelief.

“Six million.” He smiles. His finger stops dancing. “Twenty-one years later.”

I’m stunned. And in my moment of mental paralysis, he moves in for the comedic kill.

“Had I bought her house,” he deadpans with a theatrical shrug, “I wouldn’t have to go through this stupid interview.”

In Vancouver real estate is a sport. It’s what we talk about at dinner parties, the way Angelinos gossip about movies or Calgarians gush about oil. It’s our über-metaphor: the thing we talk about when we talk about ourselves. And it’s how we keep score; anyone who’s owned a home in Vancouver during the past decade has a one-that-got-away story.

Rennie’s story is simply bigger, millions of dollars bigger. And his story is family; the seller was his aunt. So like all great real-estate tales, Rennie’s reveals precisely what he wants you to know about him: he’s a hometown boy, he thinks big, and he’s got a disarming sense of humour.

But you already know something about Bob Rennie, don’t you? You know he’s the smooth-talking condo king who has lured thousands of buyers to bet their savings on an unbuilt concrete box. You know he’s transformed his name into a brand: Rennie Marketing Systems, a firm that

helps developers plan and market projects that appeal to evolving consumer tastes. And you know that in this city obsessed with real estate, he’s the quintessential celebrity.

What you might not know is that for the past few years, Rennie has been saying some curious things about Vancouver’s future. He’s been warning that downtown is running out of developable land, that the heart of the city is moving east, and that the style of condo-tower development he helped pioneer must now change if Vancouver’s live-where-you-work dream is to survive.
Rennie has put his money where his mouth is.

He’s moving his own company from a sleek office on Howe Street to the oldest building in Chinatown. And on a sunny Vancouver morning like those pictured in real-estate brochures, Bob Rennie and I took a walk across Yaletown and through the Downtown Eastside on our way to the Pender Street building he is restoring.

Oh, and along the way we taped this stupid interview.