Luxury Real Estate

By Brian Langhorst

I have heard many times over that print is dead, but this is false information! Whoever is saying this does not know the audience for luxury homes and their habits. Yes, people look to the Internet for information and, according to a National Association of REALTORS® survey, over 80% of home seekers are starting their search online for real estate.

The main question we should think about is how do they know where to look for real estate online? The answer is print!

I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with Victor Lund, co-Founder of the WAV Group. He said that the typical consumer segment of the luxury property market still looks through newspapers, magazines, and other print media for news and information. Customers need guidance and print provides this guidance to learn more about real-estate opportunities on the Internet. With a proper call to action this high-net-worth audience will be driven to your website through your print advertising campaign.

I look forward to your replies. Let me know how we can help you create targeted print ads to drive more traffic to your website.


Editor’s Note:
Brian Langhorst is LuxuryRealEstate.com’s Membership Manager. He meets members’ unique needs through the dynamic services LuxuryRealEstate.com provides. Victor Lund was so kind and helpful when he came to the Luxury Real Estate headquarters here in Seattle. He had a lot to share about our Web site, which is the most-viewed luxury real estate site in the world, and many other topics like the one Brian just discussed. It’s always nice to meet nice geniuses and well-grounded visionaries. The photo above is from www.flickr.com/photos/joebeone/2528716096 and it is the copyright of joebeone.

By Jean-Yves Piton

Unsurprisingly, international real estate investments firms, worldwide real estate brokers/agents and wealthy global buyers are capitalizing on investment opportunities around the globe at this present time.

As expressed in the news article “Sunny side of the street: America’s wealthy see buying opportunities in sluggish real-estate market,” published by MarketWatch.com (WSJ.com), 70 percent of the wealthiest (over $500,000 in investable assets) surveyed believe that the true opportunity in real estate is now. The survey discloses that precisely 40 percent of the wealthiest are presently shopping around to acquire properties this year.

Agreeably, PNC Wealth Management demonstrated in a recent Wealth and Values Survey that 69 percent of the affluent accumulated most of their wealth through work, business ownership and/or investments.

Clearly, such values about wealth help support the reason why the number of millionaires is expected to grow by an additional 6 percent this year.


Editor’s Note:
Jean-Yves Piton is the Global Services Membership Manager for LuxuryRealEstate.com. He assists Bente Madtsen, the Director of Global Services, in expanding the LuxuryRealEstate.com brand into even more countries around the world. These are some fantastic statistics! This shows that there is hope in today’s marketplace because the wealthiest members of society are noticing great opportunities to buy with prices declining. Simply marvelous.

By Robert Lockard

I would like to share a confusation with you. What’s a confusation? It’s a mixture of confusion and conversation. I’m all for preserving the English language and avoiding the addition of new and pointless slang terms. But, at the same time, I enjoy having a little bit of fun with ideas and rules because of my playful nature. I would like to share some of my thoughts in an open, possibly random, way. So, without further ado, let’s begin our confusation.

According to a CNN article entitled “Majority not buying homes, poll shows,” an Associated Press-AOL Money & Finance poll found that 60 percent of their respondents have no plans to buy a home in the next two years. However, the same poll also found that “59 percent think now is a good time to buy.” So let’s get this straight. Sixty percent of the people in this poll said they won’t buy a home in the next two years, even though nearly the same number of people thought that right now is a good time to buy.

That seems odd to me.

I generally don’t give much credence to surveys because I understand all about the standard deviation, margin of error and, of course, the fact that one out of every 20 surveys is completely wrong. Plus, with the advent of cell phones and Do Not Call lists, surveys reach a smaller and smaller group of people and leave out many key groups. Because of all this I try not to take surveys too seriously.

Having said that, this survey does shed some light on an interesting, if confusing, situation. People realize that there are great deals to be had in the current market with prices easing in some markets, but they are either unable or unwilling to take advantage of these deals. Why? Perhaps it is because current homeowners would have to sell their homes to buy another primary residence at a great price.

This might not be especially applicable to buyers and sellers in the luxury market, but it might affect people trading up into the higher echelons of luxury properties. Unless they’ve owned their home since 2001 or earlier, many homeowners face the problem of having to sell their homes for less than they would like.

Now that is a conundrum.

I’ve had my say. Feel free to share your thoughts with me on this. What can we do to let people know when the benefits outweigh the costs of buying a new home?


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of LuxuryRealEstate.com’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. I appreciate your comments and insights into this topic.