Real Estate Video Interview From Panama With Marcel Segui, PRIME Realtors

We recently sat down for a real estate video interview with Mr. Marcel Segui of PRIME Realtors in Panama City to talk about their company and real estate in general in Panama.

Watch The Video Interview In English With Marcel

During this nine minute english language real estate video interview, Marcel touches on how large properties in the interior of Panama are growing in popularity, the process to purchase properties, price ranges for various types of properties in Panama, and his views about the future of real estate investment.  He also talks about buyer representation, financing, and other services available through PRIME realtors.

Costa Rica Real Estate Video Interviews – First 7 Posted

We started to post the first 7 of approx. 22 real estate video interviews from Costa Rica.  Five of the real estate video interviews posted today are in English and two are in Spanish.

The five English language real estate video interviews include:

 Scott Oliver – Author and owner of http://welovecostarica.com. They have 100s of articles and living and investing in Costa Rica.  Watch the video.

Osvaldo Quezada Vasquez – Architect and developer of Residencias Santiago on Playa Agujas which is a laid back beach a few miles north of Jaco Beach.   Watch the video.

Daphne Rochester – Owner of a full service real estate agency right in Jaco, Costa Rica. They do everything from legal help to GIS support to financing. Watch the video.

CONCASA – We interviewed the owner and general manager of CONCASA which is a Venezuelan construction firm building very moderately priced condominiums in Costa Rica’s capital city of San Jose. These condos might be a solution for those on a limited relocation budget. Watch the video.

Thierry Lambert – Thierry is an agent working with a real estate sales company in Quepos, Costa Rica called Costa Rica Base. They are involved in a number of projects in the Quepos area. Watch the video.

In all, we have a good 35-40 real estate video interviews that we have filmed during this trip to Central America that still need to be processed and posted.  Looks like busy days ahead for our video and sound engineers….

I Won’t Be Blogging Much Over the Next Two Weeks

Too many details to drive with regards to our launch, last minute software issues, and getting the FEXPOCRUZ trade show stand ready.  I’ll pop in now and again with a post if I can.  In the interim, as Cramer on CNBC says, “there’s always a bull market somewhere”…Europe may be that somewhere at the moment.  Where will the next one be?

Ireland Real Estate:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14610533/

London_Real_Estate: http://feeds.thelondonnews.net/?rid=9d36c7d306cfc7d9&cat=415361b06433ee08&f=1

“Unzillowable” – The Perfect Term

sellsiusrealestate has coined the perfect phrase “unzillowable” in a 14 August blog posting. The phrase describes positive and negative factors that simply can’t be captured in a distant document-based appraisal system such as Zillow.  Such factors as: (complete list available at the link)

• Traffic noise
• Privacy
• Neighbors – Best or Worst? – Do they party a lot? Are they loud or obnoxious? Are they kind, quiet and considerate?
• Neighbor’s property – Do they have junk everywhere? Do they never maintain their landscaping, property or their house? Are they meticulous?
• Neighbor’s pets – Barking dogs? Exotic animals?
• Unique Day & Night Features – Street lights & signs shining through the bedroom windows at night. Daytime construction.
• Water Issues – Basement floods only when it’s a real heavy rain.
…

To be clear, I’m not a real estate agent (I just play one on .tv <grin>). However, as an avid real estate investor, I’ll surmise that, if only for the ability to factor intangibles in real estate pricing, good agents are and will continue to be an important part of the real estate sales process as we move from web 2.0, to web 3.0 to likely web n.0. their role may change a bit but the job of agents will not be going the way of typesetters anytime soon. Amazon ended up increasing the interest in books, email and online sales boosted revenues for the post office, and we’ll likely see interest in distant housing boosted by the recent changes in web real estate. My view is that zillow simply introduces yet another data point into the consideration for a given property and that’s not a bad thing. 

When I think as a technologist of the requirements, we’d need to be able to scale a system to capture the intangible factors for all US based housing.  The inputs for prices would not only require access to existing documents and ata but also would require a large, distributed system of …well…. human agents that could perform the intangible analysis in a consistent manner and make the necessary inputs. Though from a process perspective valuation can appear inefficient and subjective at times, the reality is that the price that someone is willing to pay can be equally subjective and inefficient.  But for the moment, agents are performing these tasks all over the country and the system doesn’t seem too broken as a result.

Side point: my own house is definitely unzillowable but because of factors that add to the property’s value that my neighbors generally don’t have (one of 3 low bank with beach vs medium bank waterfront properties, water all day in front of the house vs mud when the Pacific tide goes out, the view from the end of a point vs at the start of the bay, etc.).  I discussed the lameness of the online valuation system in a blog post last April (scroll near the end).  The term “unzillowable” is truly descriptive of my home’s value and I absolutely love the term. Oh, if I’d had only had it last April….. 

The sellsius blog has a number of compelling articles on Zillow and other topics. It is definitely worth a read.

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Video and Real Estate Listings Part 3

(This post available in español/portugues) 

We covered a bunch of issues in part 1 and part 2 of this series of posts. Two seemingly random and unconnected areas that I want to cover in this post include the following:

Equipment: Video as it relates to podcasts, vlogs, and vcasts doesn’t need to be a particularly expensive profession or hobby. Good shooting techniques and some understanding of basic lighting techniques can often make up for a small budget.  Keeping a sharp eye out for quality gently-used video and support gear also will help to stretch the budget. If there is any one piece of gear that I would recommend as being essential, it would be a quality microphone. You can make up for a low-end camera with well lit subjects and knowledge of basic shooting techniques…however, it’s really hard to make up for poor audio even with the best video camera and incredible visual shots. Basic editing packages are available for most (if not all) operating system in the free to very cheap range.  Sometimes they are included with the basic set of programs that come with the computer.

We are just getting started but have high definition (HD) video and editing capability for own use in podcasts or for our services to customers. This includes everything from a Sony HDR-FX1 camera to Pinnacle Liquid Pro HD and Canopus editing cards housed in 2 dual proc 2.4Ghz 4GB RAM capable workstations.  In addition to improving our set of offerings after launch, we plan on offering several future series of video podcasts of our own.  Right now, however, the software team is focused on the launch of our ForSaleByLocals(tm) web engine that will be driving our three principal sites in English, Spanish, and Portuguese as well as a number of language and country-focused real estate sites. All this while continuing to grow international real estate communities with our Spanish and Portuguese weblogs – yikes! Busy days… 

Know the Business Goal: When you are part of an agency that sells hundreds of properties or a FSBO seller looking selling your own property, one should not forget that investment of time, effort, and resources in making a vlog or podcast constitute a business decision. Despite what you may read, video is not some kind of new magic elixir for home sales nor does it fully take the place of personal contact of an agent or owner. Digital video via the web and even 360 degree shooting techniques have been around for a few years now.  I remember playing with QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) some years ago when it first came out – if I recall correctly, the quality of the 360 shots wasn’t too different from today and there were a few real estate sites that incorporated this “new” technology at the time with unknown results. 

Video should be regarded as a means to an end. If the property sells in the desired price range, mission accomplished. The best of videos likely won’t sell a home by itself and (surprise) homes will continue to briskly sell even if video isn’t included with the listing.  Video is a tool and, like any tool, it can have a use or it can stay in the toolbox and rust.  Understanding why you want to include video in your listing(s) and whether it is worth the time/effort/money involved is another business decision that needs to be approached with the same due diligence as any other.

So why are we involved? Our rationale for being involved with video as part of the real estate buying process is fairly simple. Sellers of all types of properties are leaving no affordable stone unturned when it comes to finding qualified buyers. Some US sellers in certain markets are even pursuing a strategy of drama pricing to widen their pool of prospective buyers.   We see translation of published listings and use/accessibility of online video as a key element in expanding potential customer bases. 

Tools and techniques such as downloadable podcasts/vcasts and video integrated with searchable translated online listings can help bring a house to life for far flung buyers and sellers. As an example, US real estate might be considered a bargain for an otherwise forgotten international buyer who knows that just over 250,000 Euros would have bought the same USD$350,000 house in May that would have cost him or her a good 370,000 Euros just a few years ago.  Another example might be the US buyer of vacation property looking to find a deal at local prices with the owner of a perfect property that happens to not speak English well. For years, many international agents have routinely taken professional video of properties for sale and narrated them in their local language. These are only a few examples of the spaces that may be currently underserved by the real estate community at large and that innovative use of video can help us fill as part of a wider online real estate strategy. 

Feel free to add your thoughts to the conversation…

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“Drama Pricing” In Certain US Real Estate Markets

First time that I have heard the term, “drama pricing”.

Some different perspectives on the flattening of home prices are included in this article: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2006/07/procrastinators-market.html

Please share your thoughts on the state of the real estate market in your area.