After receiving some feedback about our “racy” video — “Basic Instinct”, as interpreted by the staff of nuroa — I’d re-edited a “lite” version. The prevision versión was the “beta” version.

Enjoy!

It seems that everyone is talking about the fact that online real estate sites are increasing in traffic despite the overall drop in demand. The story’s been getting a lot of press recently, and El Pais, a leading Spanish newspaper, is the latest to jump on the bandwagon, noting that in 2007, Spanish real estate sites doubled their traffic even as demand dropped dramatically.

The relevant data includes:

• 50% of all home seekers begin their searches online
• The total number of Internet users that search on online real estate sites to find apartments has more than doubled, from 1,6 million in 2006 to 3,5 million in 2007
• The increase in users can mainly be explained by the rapid growth of Internet usage in general
• Fernando Encinar, Idealista’s communication director, points to Germany’s ImmobilienScout as an example of the fact that a stagnant market combined with strong growth in Internet usage can still create a highly profitable online real estate business (I’m trying to compile more detailed info to analyze this last assertion in more detail, but the facts speak for themselves — Germany has had a relatively flat real estate market, but ImmobilienScout just got bought at a valuation of €545 million).
• Fernando also notes that properties in Madrid now stay on the market 10% longer (on average, apartments stayed on the market for 189 days this year vs. 172 days last year), while in Barcelona apartments stayed on the market for 35,5% more time (183 days this year vs. 135 days last year).
• 1/3 of the apartments listed on Idealista have decreased in price, and prices have fallen over the last 3 months by 0,5% in Barcelona and 0,9% in Madrid.
• After years of more aggressive increases in the price for listing on their sites, some real estate portals have waived price increases to retain existing clients with lesser budgets.
• The article suggests that the four main challenges for the existing real estate portals are:
  • Finding ways to improve their search filters
  • Offering more and better features
  • Playing a more active role in the sale and purchase process, apart from just providing listings and similarly general information. Alternatively, offering the real estate agents a better return on their investments will be essential in deciding which websites survive and which sites fail.
  • Getting to know the Internet user better, offering more personalized service and the option to participate in helping to generate content/count on the user’s feedback.

I couldn’t agree more. The ideas are clear. Now it’s time to see who executes best.

To be honest, I don’t really remember that much about Oriol’s birthday party. It was a beajoulais noveau birthday party (9 bottles for 15 people!) mixed in with 6 bottles of rosé Lambrusco for all of the guests that didn’t like young red wine, plus some Tequila when Victor and I started doing shots before attempting to liven up the dance floor. I remember that the party was a lot of fun, but until I saw the videotape, I didn’t even remember that I’d been recorded. There were no Paris Hilton moments, but I’ve nonetheless edited the official version to maintain some self-respect. My mom might see this!

As you will see, Victor Aloi, one of nuroa’s star employees and one of my closest friends, is undoubtedly the star of the video. His dance solo in the middle of the video is priceless. In general, he’s a lot of fun. A bit like Clark Kent — very timid and quiet in the office, but after a couple of drinks he’s the life of the party.

The main thing I remember from Saturday night is that I got into a “Breakin´“-type, 80’s style New York street battle with Victor (luckily, it was not captured on tape). He’s 25 and I’ve 33, so at first he was beating me. His moves were younger, fresher. A crowd had formed to see who would win.

“Go Gary! It’s your birthday!”

“Did you see that move that Victor just did? It was incredible!”

Things were getting tight. I think we were dancing to some diva or the other. My iTunes playlist tells me that it was Whitney Houston’s “It’s Not Right, But It’s Okay.” Apt words indeed. I was being eclipsed, and it wasn’t right, but it was okay.

I’m too old for this shit!”, I thought to myself. The youngster had more agile movements and more confidence, and it was clear that I’d soon have to retire my crown. I walked over to Oriol, and he gave me a nod of sad agreement that said: “Yeah, we’re getting old.”

But luckily I went over to my other best friend, also named Victor, and he gave me a look of utter disgust, but with an extra bit of bitchy French attitude, suggesting complete and utter contempt.

“Gary, what’s wrong with you?” he said. “You don’t normally give up. You’re better than this! You can beat him! Just believe in yourself!”

That Rocky-like pep-talk saved me that night. I was reinvigorated. I went back to the dance floor to take on my Brazilian arch-nemesis. Suddenly Amerie’s song “One Thing” came on. I’ve never danced to it before. I usually just listen to it on the stairmaster in the gym.

I still don’t remember which moves I did or where they came from. I just know that I FELT that song. I was a man possessed. Like a black John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

Four minutes and three seconds later, I felt vindicated. There’s still some life in these 33-year old bones.

That being said, I’m still a little sore today . . . .

After a very exhausting weekend (Oriol’s birthday party and a horrific flight to Munich — 30 minutes of heavy turbulence under the direction of what appeared to be a trainee pilot), Oriol and I are now preparing for a meeting and enjoying the snowy views of Munich.

Since I’m now interested in video blogging and videos in general, we bought a video camera last week. I must admit that I thought it’d be a lot easier, but after reading lots of different forums and learning a bit about video formats, I’ve now produced my first video, which we shot last Thursday since there was not much else we could do — we had no Internet service for most of the day.

So this is my first ever video with some of the marketing staff of nuroa (including Victor, Carlos and Kirsten) serving as guineau pigs.

My task for tonight will be to be edit the video footage of the party. That was a lot of fun! Work hard! Play hard!

At the American Music Awards (kind of like the Grammies, but slightly less prestigious) Beyonce teams up with a popular country group to do a slightly different version of “Irreplaceable”.

She’s back and hopefully better than ever! That’d really be amazing, as she’s my pick for the greatest voice of all time.

After kicking a coke/crack dependency and getting rid of a deadbeat husband (Bobby Brown), Whitney Houston is back to doing what she does best, and her first concert will be in Kuala Lumpur.

I can only hope that Barcelona will end up on her comeback tour.

“Didn’t we almost have it all, the night we held on till the morning . . . .”

“It’s not right, but it’s okay, I’m gonna make it anyway. Pack your bags, up and leave, don’t you dare come running back to me!”

Whitney Houston provided much of the soundtrack to my teenage years and early adulthood.

Here is the announcement by Whitney herself, looking a little bit more mature (the young black bloggers call her “Mama Whitney” with affection), but still looking great.

Following is one of the few times that I ever remember thinking that the Star Spangled Banner (the American Anthem) is a beautiful song. I was still a teenager at the point, but I remember really liking this rendition. I think that had less to do with the song itself than with who was singing it. Ignore the war-time politics and the waving flags for the moment, and just listen to the song.

Every now and then when we meet with potential investors, a skeptical venture capitalist will ask: “But how is the housing crisis going to affect your forecasts? There’ll be fewer agencies, and they’ll have lower budgets. Isn’t this the wrong time to start a real estate site?”

Good argument, but the evidence seems to suggest the contrary.

Various sources, including El Pais, printed a press release last week based on a study from “Construcción Alimarket” noting that real estate portals and search engines are receiving approximately 13.82 million visits per month, which is a 63% increase relative to the same time last year, despite the fact that real estate sales are dramatically and notoriously down in Spain. Real estate agencies are closing their doors in droves, but the public still keeps looking for their dream homes and increasingly they are doing more of their searches online, driven by the dual facts that online searches are more convenient and that more agencies are diminishing their offline presence in favour of a more robust online campaign. The release also notes that 8 new portals will be launched this year in Spain, and each is projecting user traffic of about 600.000 monthly visits.

It’s simple to understand why agents would increasingly move their marketing campaigns online. The move online is part of a larger global trend across industries, but the fact that real estate agencies have increasingly more limited advertising budgets means that return on investment is a key consideration, and online portals and search engines generally offer a better return on investment than traditional newspapers. Relatedly, an online campaign is often a lot cheaper than publishing ads in newspapers.

One final point is that the analysis suggests that the Spanish online real estate market is far from consolidated, particularly if you compare the market shares of Spanish market leaders to those of their French, German and UK counterparts. Idealista, for example, is the Spanish market leader with a 9.4% market share (1.3 million monthly visits). Fotocasa is second with a 8.7% market share (1.2 million monthly visits), while Yaencontré is third with an 8.4% market share (1 million monthly visits).

Spanish online real estate is arguably still in its infancy (relative to other developed nations), and this is good news for all market players.

In our case, it suggests that there is still ample room for new kids on the block like nuroa.

The guys from DEMO Germany just sent us the video of our presentation. As I mentioned before, I think that DEMO is an awesome event. They’ve sent us the press clippings, and the event itself received a lot of good buzz. And as importantly, it was a great opportunity for us to meet a lot of German investors and other entrepreneurs, which wouldn’t have been as easy if we hadn’t attended DEMO.

I hate seeing myself on film, so I haven’t actually seen the video, but I lived it, so I guess that’s good enough. I remember thinking that I did a decent job at explaining the pitch without much notes or a Powerpoint presentation, but you can feel free to judge for yourself.

Oriol and I are in Paris to meet with potential investors. I haven’t been here in about 4 years, and even though I usually think that I don’t care for Parisians (I do try to make it more often to the South of France), I must admit that I was very excited as I boarded the Vueling flight.

I slept most of the way. I’m sure I was snoring, but luckily it was a relatively empty flight.

Once we got in, we saw democracy (?) in action, as the transportation workers were on strike, which meant that the only way to get to the city from Charles de Gaulle was via either an airport bus for €13.50 per person or a €60 taxi ride.

We opted for the bus, which meant standing in the cold rain for about 20 minutes. We’re still stingy entrepreneurs.

Oriol was generally surprised by how unengaging most of the Parisians were to him. He’d ask questions in French, but they all responded like they were in a rush to be somewhere else and he was bothering them. That might have been the case, but it was striking how universal their reaction seemed to be.

Once we got to the city (and it really is a very beautiful city), it was nearly impossible to get a taxi. There was a line of cabs, but I think that most of the taxi drivers were rushing off for a free bottle of Bordeaux or something, because they pretty much ignored us.

Finally, we got a taxi, arrived at the two-star, very French hotel with views of the Eiffel Tower. We dropped off our bags and went to eat. The cocktails were amazing, and the dinner was pretty nice too. I had the onion soup and steak tartare.

I generally liked it, except for one truly mind-boggling fact: The restaurant didn’t have French fries! How ironic is that?

(I added this last pic, because I think that a sexualized photo of a beautiful interracial couple like this one might still be controversial in the US, but it was prominently placed in the exclusive neighborhoods in Paris.)

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Juliet (Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare)

What’s in a name? Despite Juliet’s protestations, quite a lot, actually. There’s an interesting article in the New York Times today talking about the most popular surnames in the United States that reveals how naming patterns demonstrate both the country’s increasing diversity and racial history. A few interesting facts:

• For the first time ever, there are 2 Latino surnames in the top 10. Garcia is the 8th most popular surname, and Rodriguez is number 9. Martinez almost made it into the list, coming in at number 11. This reflects the fact that the number of Latinos in the US grew by 58% in the 1990s.
• The top Asian name is Lee, which came in at number 22 (though there are also a lot of non-Asians with the last name Lee). Lee is apparently the most common surname in the world.
• About 1 in every 25 Americans is named Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, Jones, Miller or Davis.
• Many blacks tend to have very traditional surnames, because many slaves adopted or retained the names of their former owners when they were emancipated. Nearly 90% of the Washingtons were black, as were 75% of the Jeffersons, 66% of the Bookers, 54% of the Banks and 53% of the Mosleys.
• There are 6.000.000 surnames in the US: 151,000 were shared by a hundred or more Americans, while 4.000.000 were held by only one person.

I wonder how many “nuroas” there are . . .