Don Campbell is excited that spring weather has arrived because it means he can spend more time on his farm's tractor.
The CEO of the Real Estate Investment Network (REIN), and wife Connie, own and rent:
•170 homes;
•a 39,000-square-foot industrial park; and
•an industrial strata unit.
The couple's four farms are "just for fun," he said.
Each spring, Campbell unwinds by tilling, mowing and taking care of his 20 acres of farmland. He looks forward to those hours all winter.
"My life is quite intense," the 48-year-old says between bites of a Cobb salad at the Robson Street Red Robin. "So much time is on airplanes, being at workshops and seminars and sitting down in negotiations that it's an incredible release to be at the farm."
His Vancouver-based organization has 3,500 members around the world who have invested more than $3.5 billion in real estate. Their REIN membership costs them $200 each per month.
Campbell joined REIN soon after it launched in 1992.
His vision for REIN was to provide to its members with:
•workshops featuring keynote speeches from top economists;
•mentoring; and
•proprietary research on real estate investment opportunities.
Diagnosed as a celiac, Campbell is careful what he eats.
He employs one helper to assist with the farm work, but he likes to do as much as he can on his own because it's one of the ways he expresses his passion for feeding people well and raising their awareness of where that food originates.
He also donates money and time to the Quest Food Exchange, which distributes food to less fortunate people that would otherwise have gone to waste.
Cash flow from investment properties has allowed Campbell to live well and be philanthropic, but he gives more than money, Quest's executive director Elizabeth Crudgingtontold Business in Vancouver.
"Don's philanthropy does not stop at his chequebook," she said. "We are honoured and humbled that he will take time out of his demanding schedule so he can share his expertise with Quest."
Both she and John Wiley and Sons executive editor Don Loney describe Campbell as energetic, genuine and blessed with a sense of humour.
When Loney approached Campbell in 2004 to write a book on the Canadian real estate market, Campbell agreed on the condition that all of Campbell's royalties for writing Real Estate Investing in Canada go to Habitat for Humanity Canada.
"I set this wild-ass goal of $20,000 and thought, 'Man, that would be so fantastic," Campbell said. "This weekend in Toronto, we passed $829,000 from all five books that I've written so far."
That first book has thus far sold 55,000 copies. It was updated as Real Estate Investing in Canada 2.0 in 2009 and is the bestselling Canadian real estate book ever.
Campbell's next project for Wiley, the Little Book of Real Estate, will be part of the publisher's "little book" series.
Campbell's core real estate strategy has remained constant through the years: get secure cash flow.
He focuses on buying in areas where there's growth in gross domestic product (GDP), jobs and population.
"If a hot real estate market is happening and you don't have the job growth, GDP growth and population growth to sustain it, the market just ends," he said. "You don't want to be the one standing when the music stops."
Within Metro Vancouver, Campbell prefers residential opportunities in Surrey, Maple Ridge, Abbotsford and Chilliwack to those in the region's urban core.
Seaspan Marine Corp.'s winning bid in January to build $8 billion worth of non-combat ships for the federal government is expected to create 3,200 jobs in North Vancouver and 800 jobs on Vancouver Island.
But Campbell argued that those future North Vancouver workers are likely to live throughout the Lower Mainland, including in more affordable suburbs .
"Because of the size of the [Metro Vancouver] housing market and the prices in the market, that contract will not play a major role impacting real estate values in North Vancouver, West Vancouver or Deep Cove."
According to Statistics Canada, Metro Vancouver's population is 2.31 million. That is nearly six times more than the 390,328 people who live in metropolitan Halifax, where Irving Shipyardsin January won a $25 billion contract to build combat vessels for Canada's navy. That contract will generate an estimated 11,000 jobs.
Factor in more affordable house prices in Halifax and, after some quick back-of-napkin math, Campbell points out that the city more likely to get a real estate price bump is Halifax, not North Vancouver. Other Canadian cities where housing prices could be on the rise and rents could generate sufficient cash flow over expenses for landlords include Edmonton and northern B.C. urban centres like Fort St. John and Dawson Creek. (See "Housing gold rush sends prospectors north" – issue 1171; April 3-12.)
Forestry towns in B.C.'s Interior are poor places to invest because job cuts loom, Campbell said on April 19.
A few days later, a Prince George sawmill erupted into a fireball. The tragic blaze fuelled a media frenzy that alerted B.C.'s urbanites to how fast Interior sawmills are processing wood from the mountain pine beetle infestation before it becomes too dry to cut. When that happens, jobs will disappear, he said.
Born in North Vancouver, Campbell grew up in Abbotsford on what he calls his parents' "hobby farm."
He bought his first property, in Mission, with a friend when he was 21 years old, but he chose not to make real estate his career. Instead, Campbell joined the Abbotsford-based aerial firefighting company Conair Group Inc.and, at 24 years old, was transferred to Edmonton in 1987. Five years later, he and his wife had still not adjusted to cold winters, so they returned to Vancouver.
Campbell hooked up with longtime family friend and REIN founder Alan Jacques to launch the partnership that spawned REIN.
One of REIN's key tenets is that it doesn't sell real estate.
"That allows us to keep our research unbiased," Campbell said. "Then we don't feel pressure to say that one part of the country, where we happen to be selling property, is the best place to invest."
Half of REIN's 16 employees conduct research. Campbell plans to hire more researchers to identify cities across North America, including specific neighbourhoods, that are worthy of investment.
"You have to talk geographic specificity," he said. "Canadian averages don't mean anything to anybody, except headline writers."•
