Calgary-based Mainstreet Equities Corp. one of Canada's largest landlords, is seeking more investments in Metro Vancouver, including Surrey which company president and CEO Bob Dhillon claims is understocked and undervalued in the apartment rental market. "Surrey has the lowest inventory in Canada," he said. Dhillon claims that Mainstreet now controls 30 per cent of the apartment rental stock in Surrey, B.C.'s second largest and fastest growing city. 

Mainstreet, which specializes in buying mid-market apartment buildings with low-cost financing through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., renovating them and then raising the rents, has a total portfolio of 7,797 apartments with an appraised value of $916 million. Most of its holdings are in Edmonton and Calgary. The publicly-listed company (MEQ-T) was rated a "buy" this week by GMP Securities, which said the appraisal implies a share value of $35. Mainstreet was  trading this week at $21.62 per share. GMP adds that Mainstreet''s overall vacancy rate for its apartments is 8.1 per cent, down from 11.3 per cent a year ago. According to Dhillon, Mainstreet's net operating income in 2011 has climbed 23 per cent from a year earlier, to $41 million. He also said vacancies are actually closer to 6 per cent, because some Edmonton suites were being renovated but are now rented.

Dhillon suggested Mainstreet has a $500 million war chest to fuel any buying spree, "We are hungry," he said. Dhillon also suggested that the U.S. Sunbelt could be Mainstreet's first major hunting ground outside of Western Canada. "Five years from now we will look back [at the US housing market] and consider it the bargain of a lifetime," he said, "The time to buy there is now."