For Charles Wiebe, acting is the ultimate escape.
“A lot of times when I’m going into rehearsal, I’ll think, ‘I don’t have time for this,’” Wiebe said. “I’m so busy, but [I] still go, and when I’ve done it I think, ‘Wow that was really good.’ … And no matter how stressful the day has been I always feel renewed.”
That positive spirit helped Wiebe land a best supporting actor award at the 2006 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton, England, for his portrayal of Florian in the comic opera Princess Ida. The rush of being onstage in front of a huge crowd is like nothing else, he said.
“Even though there’s a lot of hard work and being prepared to do any sort of performance, it’s the engagement with the audience, feeling their energy, reacting to their energy and performing to it. That, I think, for a lot of actors such as myself, is very desirable; it’s something that brings you back to the stage every time.”
Wiebe, however, is not a full-time actor. He is, in fact, the new president of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB) and just happens to be an award-winning thespian on the side.
Wiebe has been a commercial realtor in the Fraser Valley since 1989, but he has played multiple parts throughout his life. His childhood dream was to become a pilot (he still attends the Abbotsford Airshow religiously), and after high school he spent time as a pest control officer before heading to the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He graduated with a diploma of technology in chemical and metallurgical engineering in 1981 and pursued his first career.
“From there I was hired by Shell Canada Resources in Calgary right out of school,” Wiebe said. “I worked in their materials engineering department for several years, and then I got involved with a Richmond agricultural company which was transloading agricultural products to Japan.”
After Wiebe moved back to the Lower Mainland, his father, Chuck, through some pestering, got him into the real estate business. He was running Key West Realty, a commercial property development outfit in Abbotsford, and pressed his son to follow in his footsteps.
“I have to say when I first thought about being a realtor I didn’t think it would suit me,” Wiebe said. “For whatever reason I really enjoyed the engineering part of the work I was doing in Alberta. And also when I joined the transloading company in Richmond, managing the small business, I truly did enjoy that as well.”
Luckily with his father by his side to mentor him, Wiebe quickly caught on and got some sales under his belt right away. He still remembers his first deal in 1989 – a commercial building on a five-acre lot in Abbotsford for the sum of $1 million.
“In 1989 a million dollars was a lot of money, and I couldn’t believe that I was selling a property that was worth a million dollars,” he said with a chuckle.
“I remember the negotiations. We were sitting face to face, the seller on one side, a very well-known Abbotsford developer, and on the other side my client, who was a very well-known businessman. And we’re having this conversation and I remember they looked at me and said, ‘What do you think?’ and I remember thinking, ‘What do I think?’”
Wiebe, who’d done his research on the property, rolled into a perfectly planned response that put both buyer and seller at ease. “I felt immensely proud that day,” he said.
Having witnessed numerous boom-and-bust cycles since 1989, Wiebe said the “peaks and valleys” of commercial real estate aren’t as pronounced as they are on the residential side.
He said one thing has stayed the same since he’s started: the Lower Mainland has continued to grow.
“Our area is constantly under growth pressure. The communities continually grow, and you know if you have a strong inventory, and you’re preparing it well and you’re making sure you have good exposure, you’ll be OK.”
Chad Mowat, who works for Quikrete Canada, one of the largest manufacturers of packaged concrete and cement mixes in the U.S. and Canada, said Wiebe maintains a friendly, welcoming personality even in the ultra-competitive world of real estate.
“Great guy to work with,” Mowat said. “He uses a client-focused model. This means he is willing and able to work you across a broad array of real estate needs. … [He has] almost a jovial demeanour, but that’s not to say he doesn’t take his craft seriously.”
As FVREB president, Wiebe said he’s ready for the challenge of helping the Fraser Valley navigate a frenzied market on both the residential and commercial sides, noting it is definitely a “seller’s market” across the board.
“Certainly in the residential market we’ve seen a very busy market – a lot of it due to a lack of supply of inventory, which makes it very difficult in terms of a buyer, but very good for a seller.”
Wiebe added the boom currently pushing the Fraser Valley residential market to record-breaking sales figures hasn’t brought the commercial side along with it to the same degree, but land is still at a premium in his line of work.
“We certainly have not seen the same spike in the commercial area that the residential side has seen,” he said. “But what we are seeing is that 2016 has started off fairly strong in the commercial sector. But where the commercial area is lacking inventory is industrial land and industrial buildings, and that’s an area that we see that could turn a bit more difficult in a few years to find those types of properties.”
