A new Vancouver company is helping developers and other industry players keep pace with B.C.'s rapidly changing residential market.

MPC Intelligence gathers and shares data on all residential development projects, from beginning to completion in Greater Vancouver, Victoria and the Interior.

"The market is going at speeds that we've never seen before," says Jennifer Podmore, 26, MPC's managing partner. "If you're not up to the minute on it, you may not be in it for very long."

While many other research organizations print their information in reports twice a year, MPC publishes its material exclusively on a website (www.mpcintelligence.ca) and updates each project at least once every 30 days. The online service monitors land sales and development permits and all other aspects of a project, right down to the makes and model of faucets used.

Bayne Stanley, Business Edge
Jennifer Podmore of MPC Intelligence is on the road collecting info on residential construction.

Clients include developers, builders, lawyers, architects, municipalities, investors, financial institutions, interior designers, realtors, land owners, property management companies, accountants and marketing firms. Those seeking info on just the Vancouver market pay $4,650 per year to subscribe to the web service, while others wanting to find out about projects in Vancouver, Victoria and the Interior pay an annual subscription of $8,500.

The MPC website also offers a free service that enables viewers to click on every development location in the Lower Mainland as shown on a map, and then follow a link to the developer's website.

Podmore and a crew of four industry analysts sift information from public records, including zoning applications and building permits that have been filed with municipalities.

Then they hit the road and cruise construction sites in a new diesel-powered Smart Car.

"We are out on the road almost every day in that Smart Car just touring sites," says Podmore, during an interview in her firm's office in a refurbished Yaletown building.

The company tracks 550 projects ranging from single-family bungalows to high-rise condos to resort homes on golf courses in its three regions. MPC aims to provide its services in the rest of B.C. and across Canada in the next five years. Podmore says the firm will expand to Alberta in the near future.

She is banking that other real estate industry players seeking to curb costs will leave the research to MPC while they focus on their specialties. MPC also provides separate consulting services to developers on any given site, offering tips on factors including pricing, marketing, and demographics.

"Everyone wants to keep their finger on the pulse in the development industry ... We're the only ones that can keep (the information) up to date," says Podmore.

MPC was the brainchild of Podmore and Vancouver-based condo marketers Cameron McNeill and Jason Craik, the company's partners and only investors. The MPC portion of the company name derives from the McNeill, Podmore and Craik surnames.

Podmore operates the company while McNeill and Craik are "silent partners," and their company, McNeill and Craik Real Estate Solutions Inc.

(better known as MAC), uses the information gleaned.

McNeill and Craik's firm has sold more than 1,200 condos this season, quickly selling out projects such as the early phases of Central City in Surrey and Barona Beach in Kelowna.

Podmore stresses that McNeill and Craik are investors, but their company is not. MPC strives to be neutral while gathering info for its 50 clients.

"We're completely open-book with what we're doing," says Podmore. "We don't secret-shop anyone."

Anyone could get the same information, she says, but MPC can do it much faster because its focus is intelligence gathering.

Although clients compete against each other for market share, Podmore says developers have been quite willing to release information.

They are starting to understand that, to sustain the strong market, they need to co'-operate and share their success stories.

"By feeding wrong information to each other, we're actually bleeding our entire industry," says Podmore.

But MPC does not share proprietary details - such as unit prices and floor plans - until they have been made public.

Over the next five years, Podmore predicts, Greater Vancouver will develop several new urban centres as population density expands to outlying areas, "because we can't keep it all in one spot.”

She rates downtown Vancouver, the west side, West Vancouver, New Westminster, Coquitlam and Surrey as hot markets because couples aged 25-35 are moving into bigger condos and other homeowners are "sacrificing location" for larger, less expensive homes - and a backyard - in the suburbs.

More international investors from China, other parts of Asia, Europe and the U.S. are also taking advantage of Vancouver's growing reputation as a livable city and the buildup to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Podmore started gathering real estate info while she was still a marketing student at the University of Victoria. After completing a co-op term with Colliers International, she was hired full-time and served as research director in the company's Victoria and Vancouver offices.

Her father, David Podmore, the president and CEO of Vancouver-based Concert Properties, is one of the Lower Mainland's top developers. But she laughs off the suggestion of extra pressure to succeed because of her father's background.

"I started feeling that pressure years ago," she says. "He definitely sets the bar higher than almost anyone else ever could in the city, but I like that challenge and I'm proud to be his daughter."

Concert is also an MPC client, but Podmore says her "incredibly supportive" father wants her to "get it done" on her own.

"My dad has always pushed me to make my own name for myself," says Podmore.

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)