Archive for August 21st, 2008

Real Estate Pro on Demand?

Social fatigue has become me, but there is one thing that I find extremely fascinating about the next generation of social tools: location based networking (”LBN”). Here’s how it’s going down: you land in a strange, or familiar city and pony up to your favorite known/unknown spot. You check out what’s happening and find out that you have friends and colleagues in the area and they are GETTING DOWN! How do you know? Because you just tapped into your favorite LBN and have tapped into the energy of the scene that you are currently a part of. You have main-lined yourself into the network of that particular area! Maybe something like this:

> Sterner’s on the L train…headed in to meet “DiVideo”
> “DiVideo” is less than two blocks from you, drinking a beer and convincing __________ that local video is the future.
> Losborne is getting her nails painted black at Nailstro and is headed to meet Sterner to throw a HUGE real estate tech party.

How is Location Based Networking relevant to real estate?

You tap into a particular area’s real estate info via your mobile device. Wow…there are 15 houses in the area that I would love to check out, all within your price range! Alongside the listings, a list of all the real estate agents within [insert radius], all ready to help you at that very moment. Now this is ad money well spent for real estate pros!

This is precisely the kind of tech reality that companies such as BrightKite are trying to create. I believe they (or someone like them) will succeed in a HUGE way, for one very major reason: technology does not satisfy the need for physical interaction as much as it inspires physical interaction.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Brownstoner’s Jonathan Butler on Renovating a Brownstone

If you caught our post last week covering the NY Apartment Therapy Meetup, you may have read we planned on posting video footage from three of the four panelist presentations (sorry Jeff, we’ll catch you next time). Here’s the first, “Jonathan Butler on Renovating a Brownstone”. For those of you not in the know, Jonathan founded the popular Blog, Brownstoner.com, covering real estate and renovation in the BK. Quick note about their blog, it happened to be the ONLY place I was able to find quality info on our now current living space here in Brooklyn. So a big tip of the hat to the folks over at the Brownstoner blog.

Watch this video and you’ll come to find out just how much Mr. Butler loves him some Brownstone.

Jonathan Butler - Renovating a Brownstone - Brownstoner.com

Popularity: 15% [?]