Buyers camped out for days in front of one sales office. Controlled entry into a sales event at another newly opened project? Just a routine day on the Toronto condo scene, right?

Actually, I witnessed both of these things in Vancouver on a BILD-led housing study tour of that market last week.

Over the course of two days in Vancouver, we toured most of the city’s top new condo projects and heard from local market experts.

It was all part of an annual expedition to uncover new ideas in condo design and marketing.

Vancouver was selected because of its robust condo market, as well as the Olympic Village housing development, which Toronto developers with an interest in the Pan-Am Games housing bid were particularly interested to learn about.

As it happens, we did come across a project in Richmond where people were already camped out, even though the project wasn’t opening for another two days.

Projects in Richmond are all doing quite well based on affordability (compared with downtown Vancouver) but also thanks to the new SkyTrain link to the airport.

I really think we need to start connecting the 416 with the south 905 the way Vancouver is doing it.

At a downtown Vancouver project, we encountered a full-blown private sales event unfolding before our eyes, with buyers snapping up units in a very distinctively designed new building.

I have to say that as much as I have boasted about the quality of our condo design and the sophistication of our high-rise marketing machine, developers and their designers and marketers in Vancouver are exceptional at what they do there, as well.

Where Vancouver does trump Toronto is on their hockey team. Go Canucks Go!

Stephen Dupuis is the President and CEO of the Building Industry & Land Development Association.