Vancouver

Ever wonder why Starbucks opens so many locations so near one another? Because the tactic works, apparently. People, simply put, will not wait in long lines for their caffeine fixes.

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday noted Starbucks' success in West Coast cities like Vancouver and San Francisco:

No matter how badly people wanted a latte, if the line looked too long, they'd keep walking.

Opening another store nearby was the retail equivalent of basketball's boxing out, stationing yourself under the basket to get the rebound so the other team doesn't. Starbucks first saw this phenomenon in Vancouver in the early 1990s, when it opened a second store kitty-corner to a small store on a busy corner. To everyone's surprise, people came to the corners from different directions, so both stores did well. The logic was so simple that it almost sounded like a corporate version of that old chicken joke:

"Why did Starbucks cross the street?"

"To get to the customers on the other side."

- Tom Acitelli

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NAI Global, a network of some 300 commercial real-estate firms, released an enormous report today (which we hope to link to here shortly in PDF form).

But the highlight appears to be its ranking of the top 10 most expensive markets for retail space in the world. Midtown Manhattan is the only New York market to make the list, clocking in at no. 8--and if you look at the prices per square foot (listed below for each of the top 10 markets), it's phenomenally cheaper than the seven ranked above it.

The numbers:

Hong Kong, China: $696.44 Tokyo, Japan:$208.89 Bejing, China: $183.39 Seoul, South Korea: $160.59 Vancouver, BC: $134.61 Shanghai, China: $133.78 Taipei, Taiwan: $130.76 Jakarta, Indonesia: $114.04 New York City-Midtown: $85.67 Melbourne, Australia: $80.62

- Tom McGeveran

Here at The Real Estate, we revel in our New York provincialism. But on an irregular basis, we like to range a little further and relay what we're reading about deals further afield. To wit:

• Fancy bloggers at Luxist alert us to the Vancouver Tudor (right) that Goldie Hawn just put on the market. She's taking Kurt and the kid (they moved there to nurture his pro hockey aspirations) back to Hollywood. $5.4 million, Canadian.
• Also from Luxist: Courtney Love's Washington bungalow gets taken by a California mortage company because she owes $386,000 on the place.
• The L.A. Times reported this weekend that Roseanne (what is her last name now?) sold her 11-acre ranch in Lake Arrowhead for $2.8 million. "The sale included furnishings and a large collection of Western memorabilia," the paper's Hot Property column reported.
• Also from the L.A. Times: Jeff Klein, owner of recently re-done Sunset Tower Hotel and Tower Bar, and John Goldwyn, grandson of Samuel Goldwyn, bought George Cukor's former house in the Hollywood Hills for "about its $3.3-million asking price."
• The Wall Street Journal reported in its Private Properties column that George Harrison sold his Swiss villa. It was asking $9.3 million. (Subscription required.)

- Tom McGeveran  read more »

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