Growing up. I used to love fairy tales. I get all dressed up and reenact the stories of fire-breathing dragons. Feuding brothers and ancient wizards but as you get older the fairy tales get little bit scarier dragons turning to mortgage approval, feuding Brothers, buyers and sellers and the ancient Wizards. Let's just call them Realtors the notion of buying property in this day and age is about as likely

we as the wildest fairy tale. And the only question you'll find yourself on is trying to convince your parents to give you a loan for that down payment. Now, all this means that the very idea of owning your own home is about as likely as finding a market made for nights here in Richmond, BC.

speaking of which,

where is everybody want to get a good spot for the jousting, Stephen for the last time, it's the night market and I ght night.

I mean, next year the time you have to dumping Trail isn't a real Trail.

Wait, it's not.

Richmond, for many people. It's their first introduction to the Lower, Mainland home to Vancouver International Airport, but I want to figure out who are the people living underneath the flight, which is why today, we've teamed up with realtor Master, Vincent, limb to hear that Richmond from locals point of view, starting at the iconic Olympic. Oval will be heading straight into Richmond Centre for ending.

Our tour in Steveston on the banks of the mighty Fraser. So keep those seat belts. Fastened, get your tray tables, stowed because this tour is about to take off. Vincent, thank you very much for coming on this tortoise today. We're in Richmond of all. Thank you for having me as I say. So you originally grew up here, I was born here, born here. Yeah, or here, pretty much grew up here, from elementary school to high school at Richmond, so yeah.

Leave after high school. I left her when I was like three years old moved to Asia for about seven years. So we have a lot to cover say and then and then came back near the end of a great six but you've obviously traveled, you've obviously experience life but yet you chose to stay here as well. I did and I moved to Vancouver for a little bit but now I do have a family and with my family into Richmond back. Yeah. I would you break down Richmond and the communities here, I'll bring it.

Able to three parts. You have basically the community that's near Vancouver, that's right by the airport. And you have the central Richmond help and you have to going down south. You have basically the Water by the harbor. Our sin, so good. All right. Vincent, I have loved driving around with you, but let's check out this oval neighborhood, amazing. Let's do it.

Vince, you we're not lying. This place is a hive of activity. That's pretty impressive, right? This is the sports center of like Richmond. It's like a hub. And the best part is it's because of this area is because of Waterfront, and you're surrounded by luxury condos, it is a Coal Harbour Richmond. If you're living here in the Olympic Oval, the literature is basically your, you get to enjoy it. Like, obviously luxury amenities and lifestyle, but yet, you're only like,

Minutes, walk away to the lads outside train station, 20 minutes to Central Richmond, Richmond Centre. So you're walking distance to everything. I've heard some stories about some developers in Richmond to came and didn't finish their projects. What kind of security is therefore home Seekers out here? Now, there's a lot of big developers, you know, enrichment, that makes Richmond strong and that they will complete their projects. So, you have to go with a developer, you know, especially nowadays. They were going with the ABC development company. Yeah, most likely it would not complete.

Even though the prices are good but your your deposit, it's too good to be true. It probably is. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things means that always interests me. Is, we are by the river? Yes, we're wedged between two bridges. Yeah, geography is limiting how this place can actually develop. What is exciting about this development in the year to come in your opinion. It's really the convenience of what's offering to Richmond. So this this Hub here as you see in the oval is not just offering as I said, is not offering just too.

Residents here, but people are coming from closer to Layla. Just say, you know, in South cabin near Vancouver, by the bridge, they're all coming into Richmond using these facilities because this is the state of the art that Richmond has to offer is somewhere like here at good place for first-time buyers. I would say. So, you wouldn't say so why not? If you're a first time buyer, you want convenience, you one location. But yet you still want to, you don't live that lifestyle of enjoying all the amenities will be in central Richmond. Okay, a little bit cheaper. Yes, absolutely 100%.

Percent. So people are coming at this direction. Yeah, they're getting these homes sometimes investment property. Yeah, but if you want to go a little bit further and find that first home for you from downtown central Richmond, might be the place to go. Absolutely, because you have options. So, where are you going to take me next? We're going to go to Central Richmond, okay? This is the place that you said, you might be able to get me a home in as a first-time buyer. Hopefully, so, Vincent wasn't wrong. When he spoke about the Coal, Harbour Vibe around the Richmond, little big oval, which made sense because the same company would build up fat.

Section of downtown Vancouver are the ones developing this area as well. Meaning that this place ain't some cheap knockoff what was your decision to move back to Richmond and choose a location that you chose if you want the real answer? Yeah this is why I do what I think. I think it's well for me for to move my family back of a you know, getting sizes portability. Yeah. You know for durability that's

It's one of the main driver but at the end is close to family. All my family's here in Richmond, okay? You mentioned the airport is it as loud as it seems, if you live in Richmond, it all depends, which part of Richmond. If you're living around the Bridgeport area, you're going to hear a lot more noises, okay? Wes can be, they move the flight path a little bit so it's not as stop by you still here. Yeah. But if you're going down to do west of Richmond, you barely hear any unfortunately, as Vince said the

The oval may not be my home as a first time buyer right now. So I was very excited at the prospect of finding a community that I could realistically live in today.

I could not get over how many cranes, I salt and we're driving it obviously there's a bright future ahead for Richmond. Yes that's probably the up-and-coming newest development for Richmond Centre. Are we seeing that a lot of people entering Richmond Centre through preset at the moment? Absolutely. The right now, I would say pretty much sold out for the majority of the one beds and two beds in that project for their current phase. They do have a new face that's coming up in the next hour. I think maybe a year or two, it was

Finally, a project that a lot of people are getting 2 pieces of convenience because your central Hub, you're in the Richmond Centre. And I'm right this facility's on your doorstep, yeah. What is it then? About Richmond Center. That is attracting so many people here. You pretty much have everything. You have a ton of restaurants nearby. You have you can walking distance to grocery stores. Most important thing is school, catchments. It is sort of Russian, you have really good school, catchment IB programs in the universe.

Secondary those are all the things that a family or starting a family. That's what you want. You want to raise your kids in back at the oval. You said, Richmond Centre might be the place for me to go as a first-time buyer. Yes, you think it's true that this is a good place to be a first-time bar. Yes, it's because my goal is always you buying property, but I also want you to make money not just not necessary to you, not just getting you into a property. So I'll give you an example by your one-bedroom condo. Stephen eventually that's not going to be your forever home. You probably would want to upgrade to maybe something larger but you

Want to have the option to keep your one bedroom and you want to be a place where first of all your Equity grows and second of all, it's easy to rent out, getting good at rental income so you have that option. If you want to sell great easy property that you can offload, get your cash out. But you realize, hey Vince, I want to keep my property good cash flow coming in as well. You think there's value to buying property now over presale at the current market? I want to criminalize just depending on your current situation. Okay? Yeah. Here is the tree because priests like your bike

Future value. Yeah, you're paying for your Valley but if you can buy now, let's just say, for example, by one or two-bedroom condo you can move in now, you are putting your money right away. You, let you're letting your Echo to eat Equity grow, and you get to move in. All right, sound of. Yeah, but the contract. Yeah, but FreeCell, you're putting it in. But what happens if life changes? Let's say you need to move somewhere else. You can offload her assignment. Those things are. So there's, there's risk, they're supposed to call. And, but the good part is like, let's just say, you don't need to move in now, but you want to put your money into some

Um somewhere else and you have to intention to keywords intention on completing right move in. Then you then you are like, now we're talking now you have to be like, hey we're sending you to the right path. Not like, hey Vince, which is a good investor but I have no intention of completing. I don't have the money for it. Yeah, I would be like, I don't know. A priest is right for you. That's too much risk on you. Okay. Yeah, Center Richmond.

Great for investors potential first-time buyers and downsizes. Yes, it really seems like a commune that kind of has it all. I'm just curious to see this point. It'll a town of Steveston that you've been talking about. All day, huge difference, again, different lifestyle but that's also another community on Zone and I'm very very excited to show you around. Their IRAs. Not wait anymore, man. Let's go said, looking out at the Atlantic track. Remind me of the same track that I used to run around in my own town.

A place for the community to congregate and bond something that you don't tend to see as much of living in downtown Vancouver and up until now. I don't think I realized how much I actually missed it, what prompted you to make the move from financial industry to real estate? Or is there similarities that you saw this or something that you know, it kind of peaked my interest and I kind of wanted to try something else. I was seven years in in the, in the banking industry and I didn't

Want to, you know another 10 years passed by climbing the corporate ladder and living a life with regret of like, hey, you know what, maybe I should have done something else. How did so? And we're in ready to, like, raise place to the ground. You were like, no, this is, this is fine. And then something. That's right. That's it. That's right. Want to check out the real state was? The only thing there was that came up. There was no other plan option plan B be like, hey, I could have done this. I could have those, I'm I'm tired of my job. I didn't have that. Thought it was just that real estate came up.

If I, you know what, I think I should go out and do something else. Okay, I'm not gonna lie here before we started filming this episode. I had no idea. That Steveston was even a part of Richmond, not only that, but it's a village influenced by Japanese fishermen. Who landed here? Pre-World War Two. I mean this Village is steeped in history and culture and I for one am very excited to hear what Vince has to say about it.

Vince, I never knew that Steveston was actually a part of Richmond. Yeah. So it's more of a Hidden Gem in the city, like I think a lot of people heard of CSUN again, that was a, that's kind of like the problem there. Like, oh, Steve Sims in Richmond. So how is this somewhere like Steveston differ from Richmond Centre? Where we just were we are in the heart of CSUN Village right? When they use the word Villages really feels like a small town, right? Small town. So just a Fisherman's Wharf here you're going to get like diversification

Education of everything. You got the Waterfront, you got Seafood, but you got. You want that Asian food? There is something for everybody here. So, I think the biggest difference honestly, is the lifestyle. It's a lot more quiet to hear. Ya smaller Community than your hustle, and bustle, green Central Richmond. We're talking about diversification. Yeah, what is the difference? In terms of the houses are properties. You can get here over everything else we've seen today. So here, we're going to get condos low rise. Condos, you going to get really popular two seasons, townhouse?

Right? Yeah, and you got of course the single-family homes really something for everybody in this community, Vince, a rumor has it that you yourself live in Steveston and I'm curious what made you choose here. You know, as you can see, it doesn't even feel like Richmond, but your enrichment of the convenience of everything is close by but one main thing is your by the water. It's quiet. You got a really small community and the place where I live, all the neighbors, we all know each other, especially have a family. It's a great place to raise your family.

So, it was definitely a no-brainer for me. All right. So, Family Values. Yeah. Evident in Richmond. Yeah, beautiful scenery, and all the accessibility and benefits of being close to Richmond Town Center. Yes, no brainer. Yeah, and you're walking distance to all sorts of food around this area. I'm really curious though to see back in one of the properties that we talked about earlier in River green and see what that old master plan is a beige. Let's go take a look at that. It's good checkbook.

This is not just a master productivity, it's Richmond's. Most luxurious master planned community that we're seeing here. You know I feel like master planned communities being thrown very Loosely these days but what really is a master planned Community it's you know, sure three, four, five buildings, connected to get together be you know cohesive about the whole project but the main more important is the location, the convenience and

Providing, great phenomenal, amenities to the residents. What phase of a master plan? Are we seeing here in front of us? So, right now, we are, you've seen a one River green tuber green holly bridge being built out but that's only 50 percent of a 20-year plan. So they're building a spec is building all the way down to the west side of it all around the Waterfront. So this makes this whole Community very, very unique. This was one missing piece in Richmond before before the Olympics came. Sure. They grew the area but it wasn't.

In this luxury piece, there were trying to build enrichment base. Is the new thing you've seen over the, your tile would say the last 10 years because if you're looking at other buildings in Richmond, there's nothing compared to what's in this area since you said that this is the Coal Harbour of Richmond. Yes. Are we seeing people migrated from Vancouver to here? Then I have clients that have because they're wanting the same type of quality of what they are offering at Cole Harbour and they used the lifestyle.

So, you're getting the Waterfront, you're getting the finishes, you know, you're getting that, you know, nice like massive lobby with the concierge service. You know, that's what I feel like that's really unique. Dare, I say cold Harbour elevate it. I would say. So Vince, thank you so much for all your time today. This tour has been a fascinating seeing these Master build projects, and how communities have long-term plans. You're not just Alec are popping up here and there, it's really reassuring to see the future of what Richmond.

Has to offer. I just want to go for one last walk on the boardwalk. Let's do that. It's okay.

Richmond, you have surprised me, immensely. Usually the only reason I make my way out here is to take my car to the mechanic ignorance, the life, and vibe that this community, and its many neighborhoods have to offer from the luxury recreational developments, at the Richmond Olympic Oval, to the water lapping against the fishing boats, the Steveston Richmond. Really does have it all. And what better way to view this community than what Vincent a generous and kind family.

Man who has lived around the world, but chose Richmond to call his home. It was so cool to hear his take on real estate and his own journey to get to where he is today. I know that when the time comes to make the leap into the Richmond Market, I can rest soundly knowing that I now have Vince's number on speed dial.