Get a Condo on YouTube

By Timmy Watson in News on Mar 10, 2007 9:20PM

At the age 14 or 15 our parents told us they would put $1500 towards a car, although it was years away we dreamt of the day when the girls would gather around and a constant battle would be waged over who got shotgun. Needless to say we spent hours and hours perusing through the latest auto trader and watching the weird classified ad channel that showed shiny sparkling new vehicles. Occasionally the showing of cars would wind down and a soothing voice would sound through the speakers, expounding on the latest homes for sale. Well, those that can turn a dime-a-dozen suburban home into a fifteen minute montage of such amenities as "shelves in a closet" have found a new home on YouTube.

As the Tribune reports, this is a quite a boon to business in an area of the market that seems to stay on the cutting edge of nothing. While some of the videos we went through for this were extremely well made, we tend to enjoy the shaky hands of those that are a little nervous. The videos also seem to cater the ever decreasing attention span of those of us that consume a mass amount of information on the internets, most of the videos clock in at :40 - :45. There are definitely some marathon videos though. In addition to YouTube, companies are making the videos available as video podcasts so that when you finish watching Battlestar Galactica you can check out new homes for sale in your area.

All in all we have always found that, aside than open houses, searching for an apartment or house is extremely convoluted on the internet. The pictures are horrible, sometimes showing simply a deck or some other non-pertinent information. The location is often times ambiguous at best (for instance, a quick search on Craig's List for Wicker Park showed about 40 or so places in Rogers Park). The idea of sitting down and taking a few virtual views could definitely help standardize the method by which we search.