March 13, 2007 By: Polyana da Costa
Steven Feldott
For most, it’s an entertainment site for sharing raw user-produced videos.
For real estate brokers, it’s an opportunity for a virtual home tour that has the potential to reach millions worldwide for free.
That’s how some brokers are starting to see YouTube, the wildly popular site where users can post and share all sorts of videos.
“In today’s market we want to do everything we can,” said Steven Feldott, an associate with E2 Properties in Hollywood. “This is the next generation of doing business. We still send out cards, letters. But that’s not enough.”
Video quality can vary from jerky with false starts to slick infomercial style.
A Davie house showcased on YouTube was viewed about 600 times in less than two months, resulting in several phone inquiries and three showings.
“I haven’t closed on anything yet,” he said. “It’s still a tough market. But they were serious inquiries that may lead to something.”
It’s not clear when the popular site had its first real estate video listing. The site, which was started in a garage in the San Francisco Bay area in 2005, was sold to Google for $1.6 billion last year.
YouTube, which gets more than 20 million visitors per month, features videos on almost anything from news to dance performances and how to make a champagne.
YouTube’s videos are free and account for 60 percent of all videos watched online, according to Hitwise, a New-York based Internet research firm.
But the new real estate marketing outlet, which comes as a surprise even to YouTube, is growing even though the site is not designed to sell anything.
“All of the Realtors I talk to want me to create a podcast to post their properties there,” said Feldott, who has a background in the film and editing industry.
YouTube doesn’t even have a real estate category.
For now, he and other sellers are listing the properties under the travel category.
Without its own category though, finding real estate videos in the maze of offerings on the site can be difficult. Most people find out about the properties through broker’s advertising fliers and other real estate Web sites that direct them to the YouTube video. Once users realize properties are being showcased on YouTube, they are likely to search for other properties as well by entering search terms for real estate in a specific area.
Unlike marketplace sites such as Craigslist and eBay, YouTube is categorized by entertainment- and lifestyle-oriented sections such as comedy, pets and sports.
The site is driven by public demand, YouTube spokesman Aaron Ferstman said.
“We pay close attention to the comments on the site,” he said. “Real estate videos are a rising trend. We have no specific plans for [a real estate section] right now, but if we find it is something that has a huge demand, we would consider it.”
YouTube recently noticed an overwhelming demand for presidential campaign videos as candidates increasingly use the Internet to reach voters through chats and podcasts.
Last week, it responded by launching YouTube You Choose ’08. The centralized hub features candidate-created videos, speeches, chats and behind-the-scenes footage.
Videos have already been posted for Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama.
Even without a designated segment, a search for real estate on YouTube delivers more than 7,000 results including 200 South Florida-related videos.
Not all are real estate listings. Some are educational programs and commercials on grants and mortgages.
Few commercial listings are on the site, and most of the real estate brokerages using it are small to medium sized.
“A lot of it has to do with audience and demographics,” said Mark Lesswing, senior vice president and chief technology officer at the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors. “You’re not likely to find big CEOs looking for commercial properties on YouTube. It’s a way to reach younger demographics.”
More than half of YouTube’s user are males between the ages 18 to 34, according to Hitwise. Less than 20 percent of users have a household income of more than $100,000. About 30 percent earn between $30,000 to $60,000 and another 30 percent earn between $60,000 and $100,000.
Lesswing, an avid user of YouTube, said it will be interesting to watch the trend.
“It’s like doing an open house in a video format,” he said. “The first time I heard of it was from this Realtor in California who sold two houses on YouTube. Then I started to see other Realtors doing it.”
That was a few months ago.
The postings don’t look like they will threaten conventional online real estate Web sites such as Realtor.com and are not seen as a substitute for other marketing efforts.
“YouTube adds another element to the equation. It’s a complement,” said Samir Patel, an associate with Miami-Beach based Douglas Elliman Florida. “I don’t expect people to learn about the property on YouTube, but to learn about it and then go to YouTube to see it. For example, I post on Craigslist and include a link to the video.”
The user-friendly videos also can easily be embedded in a real estate company’s Web site.
Patel has several postings on YouTube, including one in which he gives a virtual tour of downtown Miami and the condos under construction in the area. The video has been viewed about 2,000 times since it was posted five months ago.
“It helps buyers from New York or Chicago get a better idea before flying here, but real estate is a very face-to-face type of business,” Patel said.
In 1995, less than 2 percent of buyers used the Internet as a real estate search tool. Today, about 80 percent do.
Depite the tens of thousands of real estate listings on Craigslist, eBay and now YouTube, the sites remain a small part of the real estate industry considering there are about 3.55 million homes on the market, said Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors.
Ideally, conventional real estate Web sites should catch up with a higher end and more user-friendly technology such as YouTube, said Carlos Mandiola of Coldwell Banker in Key Biscayne.
“I haven’t gotten much response from my listing,” Mandiola said of his YouTube video for a $9.5 million Key Biscayne home listing. “But I send the link to customers who want to look at it. It would be nice if it could all be included on Realtor.com for example. Some of the listings there don’t even have photos, so we’ll use the tools that are available to us.”
Perhaps the increased spending on online real estate advertisement will help push for an improved video technology on mainstream real estate Web sites.
“I would love to be able to upload a video to every listing I post online. But most of what’s out there now, other than YouTube, is not very user-friendly,” Mandiola said.
Polyana da Costa can be reached at
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For real estate brokers, it’s an opportunity for a virtual home tour that has the potential to reach millions worldwide for free.