By now even the reader of the province know it’s a slow real estate market out there.  Not much is selling, sales to list ratio is low and prices are dropping.

..and yet, we still hear of new developments that have big opening day sales (where ‘opening day’ conveniently ignores months of marketing).

So who’s buying these new condos?

According to Bob Rennie it’s young people without any money:

Rennie Marketing registered 7,500 potential buyers before the sales launch, and he says the majority were under 28 years old. He believes it is the young demographic that is fuelling the sales of projects like the two he’s selling at Marine and Cambie. Part of MC2’s appeal is that because it’s not downtown (a 20-minute SkyTrain ride), the prices are lower. And pricing on more than half the homes was kept under $350,000, to appeal to the young demographic.

“So, we made the right decision bringing on both towers at MC2,” he reflects, sitting in a trendy coffee shop on Main Street. “We’ve released all the affordable product. There are 130 homes without parking so that we could get inventory under $300,000. We really did the research on the first-time buyer when we did Marine Gateway across the street, and 28 per cent of our buyers answered in an exit survey that they were receiving down payments from mom and dad, and grandparents.”

Full article in the Globe and Mail.