The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 25

RODIN READY TO TAKE Canucks' 2009 pick healthy, FLIGHT hungry C5 0 rainforest' i r--v ejwc La 1 4 FIND OUT WATTS UP Devices track power usage C3 VANCOUVER SUN TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2016 Jordan Lewis is the CEO of biddwell.com, which allows landlords to receive sealed bids from prospective clients. There were more than 170 suites listed on the site recently, almost all in Vancouver, with suggested rents as high as $9,000 a month for a two-bedroom in Coal Harbour, mark van manen Online se rvi SECTION Vancouver's Bull Housser law firm unites with U.K. giant DAN FUMANO Bull Housser, a Vancouver-based law firm with 126 years of history in B.C., will combine with a British multinational that describes itself as on of th world's fastest-growing global law firms. Bull Housser announced Monday its merger with Norton Rose Fulbright, a London-based firm with more than 50 offices around the world. The move is the most recent in a series of law firm mergers as the legal industry continues to consolidate across Canada and the world.

Bull Housser managing partner Janet Grove said the development speaks to B.C.'s emergence as a "real international hub." "Many of our clients are now expanding globally and so this now allows us to help them, really, wherever they go," said Grove. "As business goes borderless, if we're going to do our job and serve our clients, we need to go borderless too." as Bull, Housser Tuppcr LLP, hasbeen a fixture of the B.C. legal community over the decades, including advising on some of the provin ce's largest infrastructure projects. The firm, which has about 90 lawyers, will merge with the larger British fi rm, with more than 3,800 lawyers globally, with the combined company operating under the Norton Rose Fulbright name. There arc no plans to significantly change staff-inglevels at the Vancouver office as a result of the merger, Grove said.

Through a series of earlier mergers with Canadian firms, Norton Rose Fulbright already had offices in Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City. Vancouver was "certainly the missing strategic bit for our purposes," said Crae Garrett, Norton Rose Fulbright's Canadian head of infrastructure, mining and commodities. "I can't speak for other countries, but certainly within Canada, we think that we have completed our jigsaw puzzle right now." "We try to go where our clients wan us to go," said Garrett. "We've been hearing the message loud an clear from a number of our clien ts, from Japanese trading houses to local mid-tier mining companies basedin Vancouver that want to do business with coun terparts in Asia, that this is where we needed to be." Such ergers have become ore common in Canada and around the world, said Peter Zeughauser, chairman of Zeughauser Group, a U.S. -based consulting company that advises law firms.

Globally, the legal business has traditionally been more "fragmented" than the accounting or advertising industries, where a few major players have larger market shares, said Zeughauser, and the pace of consolidation in the legal industry is likely to accelerate in the future. "Canadian companies do business all over the world, and they need lawyers with that reach. It's hard to build that kind of global firm yourself if you're a firm in Vancouver," said Zeughauser. "It's much smarter to go with a firm that's already gota significant global footprint and is running it successfully, like Norton Rose And Canada is an increasingly attractive market." dfumanotheprovince.com twitter.comfumano or in i innate- mi rr UUGIU UvGIU Website insists it is helping tenants, but critics worry about price gouging urn vary wildly in the super-heated market with a vacancy rate of less than one per cent. "We wanted to know what is the market willingtobear and what do they (tenants) want to pay," Lirag said.

He added all the suites are freshly renovated and have an en-suite washerdryer. The building is a block from the beach. The Oceancrest website listed suggested rents starting at $1,480 for ajunior one-bedroom to $2,600 for a two-bedroom and $6,200 for the penthouse suite. "We're catering to people who really want to live there," said Lirag, who knows of one 400-square-foot studio in a 60-year-old West End building which requires repairs that rents for $1,750. He said feedback from potential tenants indicated Oceancrest is on the right track with its suggested rents.

He an Lewis insisted the sealed bids prevent bidding wars. The site allows prospective tenants to send landlords a "rental resume" along with their bid and gives them the opportunity to sell themselves and even negotiate alower rent, he said. "What is important is not only the rent," said Lirag. "We need to get returns on investors' money but it's not only the rent that matters to us, it's the quality of tenant." He said tenants could bid below the suggested rents, but an email sent to prospective tenants warns: "Please be aware tli ere ay be mul -tiple groups interested in the specific unit that you want." And an association that represents owners and managers, including those at Oceancrest, worry the website and pending app are a 11 He said the "commodification of housing" needs tobe further regu-1 ated, adding that landlords shoul be able to make a profit from then-properties, but "there has to be a balance. "We don't allow price gouging.

Tenants have a right to find housing at a reasonable price." Rents have skyrocketed in the past year and Sakamoto said there need to be some "mechanisms in place to keep them in check," such as a ban on the "loophole" of six-month tenancy contracts with vacate clauses that some landlords are using to do an end-run around limits to rental increases (2.9 per cent) set by the province in 2016. Lewis said the online service, which is being developed into a mobile app, will also allow landlords to collect potential tenants on a waiting list on the biddwell. com site and offer renters virtual reality tours of the available suites. Rentberry, a similar app in San Francisco, charges tenants $25 to register to use the site and doesn't seal the bids. "They're (Rentberry) the Hunger Games for the rental market and they're very much on the side of the landlord," said Lewis.

"They want to axim ize RO I (return on in vestment) for the landlord." He saidbiddwell.com would advocate for the tenant, but said the re venue for the site would eventually come from landlords. He didn't see a conflict of interest. He said since the launch a month ago, the site has registered 600 users, 40 per cent of which are tenants. Hesaidhe's had interestfrom Toronto, Edmonton, Squamish and Whistler to expand the service to those cities, Heplanstoeventually expand to the U.S. slazarukpostmedia.com recipe for driving rents up, which is already happening with traditional ads.

"Lan dl ordBC as concerns abou any app that would facilitate or could encourage bidding wars," saidDavid Hu tniak, of LandlordBC. "Our concern is that is what could very well happen with this app." "It's going to make it more challenging for tenants to find affordable housing," said Hutniak. lie sai lan dl ords are looking for long-term stable tenants and said if ten ants are forced to pay higher rents, it would encourage tenant turnover and drive up landlords' costs. There are still going to be outrageous bids that some tenants aren't going tobe able to afford. It's still going to drive rents up.

"It (bidding) is not good for anyone," Hutniak said. "Justbecause the bids are sealed doesn't mean it's not a bidding war," said Andrew Sakamoto, executive director of the Tenant Resource andAdvisory Centre, which advocates for tenants. "There are still going to be outrageous bids that some tenants aren't going to be able to afford. It's still going to drive rents up." SUSAN LAZARUK A Vancouver-based online service that helps landlords rent suites through sealed bids from tenants is strongly opposed by Landl ordBC because they fear it's going to encourage bidding wars and make i even tougher for renters. Biddwell.com, launched four weeks ago, lists local apartments for rent for prospective tenants to bid on within a prescribed time period in the same way shoppers use eBay.

Co-founder and CEO Jordan Lewis said the new site will assist landlords in finding "quality tenants" and also give a voice to tenants to submit a lower otter if theyhave those strongqualities in the hopes alandlordwouldchoose them over the highest bidder. "We want tenants to be able to negotiate on pricing," said Lewis, who has an engineering background, "Rightnowthe tenant has no voice." There were more than 170 suites listed on the site recently, almost all in Vancouver, with suggested rents as high as $9,000 a month for a two-bedroom in Coal Harbour. The cheapest rent was $1,000 for a 460-square-foot studio on Kingsway. The recently renovated Occancrcst Apartments at Jervis and Harwood streets listed all 38 suites on biddwell.com, saidLewis. Jay Lirag, who manages the Oceancrcst on behalf of owners and investors, said he elected to use biddwell.com exclusively for finding tenants because it was difficult to determine what to charge for his luxury suitcsbecause rents.