She flies into the office just on time for our meeting and a coffee together, perhaps a typical Squamish realtor always on the go, but Angie Vazquez’s life has been anything but typical.
Vazquez has been a TV celebrity, a Miss Universe pageant organizer and, most recently, one of the up-and-coming stars in the local real estate market.
She sold 41 properties in her first full year in the business here last year under the mentorship of Maggie Thornhill.“But don’t ask me about my personal life,” Vazquez quips. “I was working seven days a week.”
The Sea to Sky Gondola helps fuel the hot Squamish real estate market, she explains over steaming lattes in the Thornhill Real Estate office. Viewing the town from high above, she explains, “people discovered that Squamish was a city, not just a Tim Hortons and a pit stop to buy a toothbrush and toothpaste and go to Whistler.”
Quest University also attracted many who have viewed the district’s spectacular scenery from its lofty vantage point, she says.
Vazquez, 45, lives with her two children, ages 8 and 13, and two international students from Mexico and Germany in her home in University Heights, one of the many rapidly growing neighbourhoods in Squamish. When she moved in, three families lived there – now, there are 30.
“For me, it’s very impressive.”
The typical real estate buyers in Squamish, she says, are couples in their 30s with young children or a baby on the way. They’re vegetarians or vegans trying to do things right. “They both work in the city and commute, and they love the lifestyle here – hiking, biking, skiing. It’s like having our playground in our backyards.”
About 70 per cent of buyers are from out of town, she estimates, and 25 per cent are escaping Toronto.
Vazquez came to Canada from Mexico seven years ago, originally landing in Vancouver with her husband, from whom she is now separated. She enjoys Canada for the safety it provides. Unlike in Mexico, her homeland, she can bring her children to school in Canada and not worry about them being kidnapped. In Mexico, all the schools have fences to prevent criminals from nabbing children and demanding ransom.
In Mexico, she was a TV show celebrity on the Televisa channel, providing on-air advice about decorating homes. She owned a furniture store and had sold real estate lots in Mexico.
She liked the attention of being on TV.
“It was amazing…. When you are on TV, people trust what you say. They give you a lot of energy. It makes you better for them.”
Being a celebrity, she explains, “is so nice, not just for your ego, but it motivates you to be better.”
She has also helped organize the Miss Universe pageant with her cousin, the 1991 Miss Universe Lupita Jones, who became the franchise owner of Miss Universe and Miss World for Latin America. Jones is a “big time celebrity” in Mexico and all of Latin America, says Vazquez. When they go out to dinner, people stop and ask her for autographs.
Vazquez has met Miss Universe pageant owner Donald Trump and admires his business acumen but doesn’t want to say much more, given Trump’s “rude and racist” comments about Mexicans during the U.S. presidential campaign.
Vazquez is one of only about a dozen Mexicans in Squamish, she says. “Spanish-speaking people don’t move to Canada, because the weather is too cold for us,” she says. But she notes some of her friends have followed her to this country because they appreciate the safety here.
She especially enjoys the community support of Squamish, where she is becoming successful as a realtor. Perhaps surprisingly for a woman who has spent most of her career in sales and marketing – many remember her as the cosmetics manager at London Drugs here – Vazquez’s university degree is in computer engineering.
“I used to program and do very smart stuff,” she says, laughing. “Now, as a realtor, I always present a lot of stats…. Even if they don’t understand, they like that I always present numbers.”
For Squamish, she says, the numbers are usually good. Some of the people who have bought in the new developments are already flipping their properties to new owners at a profit.
It’s keeping the local realtors hopping – including Vazquez.
