Since May 2009, real estate giant Coldwell Banker has been promoting their video channel on Youtube by the name On Location. The person in charge of promoting and marketing this initiative by one of the main real estate franchises in the United States is Michael Fischer.

We have nothing but to tip our hat to Michael, his job and effort haver really shown on what Coldwell banker is offering to their clients and partners, this is a true must follow by the industry.

What is really interesting in the service are the functionality it offers a person browsing for a home on the video channel. It shows on a map the most basic things when you are searching for a property to buy or rent:

1. Properties listed in the surrounding area searched.
2. Realtors that have properties listed in the area.
3. Real estate agencies office´s in the whole city.
4. Public information of the area.

This is a great example on the use of a viral channel such as video, because there is a lot of information that a user can share to its peers. By far a great execution of a marketing and business strategy by a real estate company thus far.

There a bunch of video sites focusing on providing video channels for real estate like Real Estate Shows and FrontDoor,but this are merely services to upload videos or animations. But this will not have the audience that Youtube can provide.

Vídeo channels for Latin America real estate.

In the Spanish speaking countries we have BienesRaicesVideo, that offers the full service of filming and streaming real estate videos, they are offering an outlet for marketing and promoting real estate in Latin America and Spain, but they are not doing it by user generated content.

The problem is the digital divide that Latin America is facing right now and that creating content is not the “core business” of realtors and real estate agencies.

Delivering content is a fundamental part in providing “Add on” value by real estate agents.

Creating an open tool to publish real estate videos, where realtors can have a way to upload their real estate video listings so they have a digital showroom; would be a great opportunity to motivate the creation of original content from the real estate industry, showcasing the current properties in the market.

Since most people now, know how to use a video camera, it is not like personal publishing on a blog that takes time and practice. Anybody can make a mini documentary on a property.

But for now YouTube reigns supreme for Viral videos and there is no one to stand in their way. For now……..

I ran into the following video from London Barcamp No.3.

The speaker is a guy from Holland named Reiner Zwitserloot talking about monetization from the “Long Tail”. The video is here.

It was quite interesting to get a perspective on how peoples behaviour of paying for services and buying products is changing dramatically.

This video tell a good story on how the consumers are more willing to pay for a service or product, where they can dictate the price based on the level of service and the quality of the product.

The housing and real estate industry should take a good long hard look, on how they are doing business right now and how this could pose a problem for the younger generation. This new era of prosumers.