Unique Homes Blog

By Mark Moffa

With the U.S. mired in a housing slump, agents and industry leaders at the Inman News Real Estate Connect conference in New York City in January turned much of their attention toward finding out what’s going on in the rest of the world.

Experts from the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Russia were among those sharing information about their housing markets. Here’s a quick roundup of what they had to say:

• The Netherlands markets are “at a complete stand-still,” according to Boris Geheniau, owner & director of Fundament All Media. He said new home sales are down 70 percent, as buyers are still waiting for prices to drop. One innovation, he reported, is that new developments are creating “virtual communities” online for potential buyers.
• Germany is quite stable with very low employment, said Andreas Assum of Geschaeftsleitung Online Marketing, ImmobilienScout GmbH.
• The story is Spain is quite different, however. Gonzalo del Pozo, co-founder and CEO of Globaliza.com, reported that the real estate market there is “down big.” He said 1.5 million new homes are sitting empty, and that the country’s lack of an MLS (which is not unique outside of the U.S.) is not helping.

Deals are still based primarily on trust and establishing relationships with the parties involved. In other words, blindly trusting a relatively unknown agent with your transaction is not something with which Spaniards are comfortable.

He is stressing the importance of photos and video to his clientele. “When you are talking about Internet leads, it’s very important to have as many photos as possible, and also video.”

• In Russia, the market is stagnant and buyers are waiting for prices to drop, said Ivailo Jordanov from Domavin.ru. In the meantime, Russian buyers are looking elsewhere.

“Why buy in Russia now? Prices will go down,” is the popular thinking, Jordanov said. So, Russians are buying where prices already have gone down, such as Europe and Florida, he said. He said Russians have plenty of wealth to spend and they have a lot of interest in New York and Miami. Trips are even being organized to provide tours for prospective Russian buyers, he added.

Jordanov noted that property listings online in Russia look like classified ads, as photos and videos have not caught on. “People feel that having photos of their home online is a little scary,” he said.

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