This was announced last month and will appear in our December/January issue:

If consumers are the drivers when it comes to dictating content on a luxury real estate Web site, then Paul Boomsma is not unlike the guy in the passenger’s seat with the map providing the directions.
Two years after being named to spearhead the launch and development of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World’s Luxury Portfolio Fine Property Collection, Boomsma was named the program’s president and the chief marketing director for LeadingRE.
“Paul is truly a visionary in the luxury space,” said Pam O’Connor, president and CEO of LeadingRE. “He has long been the face of Luxury Portfolio…and is an enormous asset to our organization.”
Luxury Portfolio includes a network of 200 locally-branded luxury real estate firms in the U.S. and 15 other countries, an award-winning luxury property Web site, and a collection of marketing components ranging from a blog to consumer trends research.
Among the accomplishments credited to Boomsma are creating the first and only global luxury real estate site to offer content in eight languages and 22 real-time currencies and being the first network to represent 25 percent of the 1,000 most expensive U.S. properties. The site receives traffic from more than 100 countries.
“We saw a niche in the market and an opportunity to fill it—and consumers have paid attention,” said Boomsma, previously the program’s executive vice president. “Today’s luxury consumer is an exciting new consumer. Our studies have shown that the majority of today’s wealthy are highly educated and Web savvy, but still identify with middle-class values even though they have tremendous net worth—and so many of the luxury organizations of the past no longer resonate as strongly with today’s consumer.
“Our future plans are to continue to embrace the affluent consumer and raise the bar for the entire luxury real estate community. The consumer is the driver, and we are here to deliver everything they demand with regard to their luxury real estate needs.”
—Ken Weingartner

In the face of online home valuation sites such as Zillow, Eppraisal and Reply, Coldwell Banker Real Estate last week debuted its own Home Value Estimator — part of a new tool called Home Tracker. Coldwell Banker’s system is similar in that it uses recent comparable sales data to come up with a value range for a given house. But the company claims that its version is an industry first: here’s why. In addition to having some added credibility due to its affiliation with one of the nation’s leading real estate companies, it allows consumers to combine current real estate data with actual or planned improvements, generating a dynamically updated estimate of a home’s market value. For example, the Improvement Calculator is deigned to tell you how much a $50,000 kitchen remodel would increase the home’s value based on local or regional data.

Other bells and whistles include a Maintenance Log, which allows users to store improvement and maintenance information (you can even request a reminder by e-mail when the next maintenance is “due”). You can ask to be alerted of changes in home value and recent neighborhood sales. A Notes and Documents section allows consumers to store any home-related materials for future reference (receipts from the purchase of major appliances and electronics can also be scanned and saved here). And the Photo Album feature can be useful for before and after pictures of renovations, or for insurance purposes.

Coldwell Banker is taking strides to stay ahead of its competition. The Web is where most people start their home search, so developing the best online tools possible is a common-sense way to market your company. I’m sure that whatever the investment was to develop Home Tracker will pay dividends down the road.

To see the press release, go to: http://www.realogy.com/media/pr/show_release.cfm?id=447

To use Home Tracker, go to: www.ColdwellBanker.com

Allow us to toot our own horn for a second: Unique Homes is proud to be named as one of the top luxury blogs in the world by the Web site International Listings. Unique Homes is one of 12 real estate blogs named in the site’s list of the top 100 blogs. The list includes blogs about art, fitness, fashion, food, automobiles and more. To see the list, click below:

http://www.intlistings.com/articles/2007/top-100-luxury-blogs

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that 65 percent of all houses priced at $8 million or more in central London were bought by people born outside the U.K. last year.  Location, taxes and history all play a role, according to Monday’s article by Cassell Bryan-Low and Jeanne Whalen.  This is a very well-written article, with colorful details.  It’s not just a real estate article, it’s a lifestyle story.  We’re talking $18 cups of tea, $29 mojitos and $216,400 for one evening at a night club.  This is a great read.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB119154852396349806-lMyQjAxMDE3OTAxNTUwNDU4Wj.html

More news from Realogy today, and this is big: Starting July 1, a new real estate brand will be competing for your business.  Realogy, which already owns CENTURY 21, Coldwell Banker and ERA (and licenses Sotheby’s International Realty), will license the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand.  The real estate giant announced today that it entered a 50-year deal with the Meredith Corporation to use the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand name.

Meredith first published the Better Homes and Gardens magazine in 1924.  The deal appears to be a win-win, allowing Meredith and Realogy to develop new revenue streams. The magazine boasts a circulation of 7.6 million and a readership of nearly 40 million.  Read the full press release here:

http://www.realogy.com/media/pr/show_release.cfm?id=441

Coldwell Banker last week released its 2007 Home Price Comparison Index, which once again showed that Beverly Hills is the most expensive market in the nation.  The numbers show quite a disparity between Beverly Hills and the most affordable market, Killeen, Texas.  These numbers are certainly worth taking a look at!!

http://www.realogy.com/media/pr/show_release.cfm?id=438

Realtor Magazine last week identified 10 cities that were projected by Business 2.0 Magazine to see substantial growth in median sales prices in the coming years.  Note that three Texas locales are represented.  You can find a great article on how Texas in bucking national trends in the Oct./Nov. issue of Unique Homes, due out soon.  Additionally,  the December/January issue will feature 25 markets to watch for 2008 — not surprisingly,  some of markets that made this list (such as New Orleans) also made our list.

http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2007092502?OpenDocument

Read an interesting article last week about the growth of the popularity of auctions.  “According to the National Auctioneers Association, more than $16 billion of residential real estate was sold by auction in 2006, an increase of 12.5% over the previous year.”  See the links below for more:

http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/markettrends/20070925-hoak.html?rejcontent=mail

http://www.auctioneers.org/core/contentmanager/uploads/PDFs/AuctionIndustryResults/2006IndustryResearchResults.pdf