Nader Shureih
Editor in Chief
As a market researcher with the federal government, Nader's energies are focused on the good of the public - looking at the Canadian cultural and social landscape for the purpose of developing stronger ties between and among Canadians.
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Archives
NHA Blog
Proud to Launch New Web Video Series for Ottawa Home Buyers
Posted by admin | August 20th, 2010
Hi! Gen Tremblay here, President of New Home Alert. I’m really excited to share with you our very first pilot episode of ‘New Home Ed’ - launched today! Ed is New Home Alert’s newest personality, with a mandate to find local experts to educate Ottawa home buyers. The web video series focuses on what comes before, during and after the purchase of a new home. Ok, so why am I so excited, you might ask, when everybody else and his dog are creating videos and posting them on YouTube?
If everybody else and there dog are posting videos on YouTube, they’re also watching them. Over 1,000,000,000 videos are downloaded everyday on the web. When you combine a camera and an expert, you can get pretty interesting results! We believe that seeing is believing…so we’re bringing you current, engaging, entertaining and educational topics in the form of video. The series is far from being TV material (but kudos to our videographer Chris from Reality Homes for producing quality HD episodes). While fully researched prior to shooting, each episode is unscripted, exclusively local, and brings a human elemant to perhaps dry subjects. It’s real!
Episode 1: Buying an Energy-Efficient Home
The first ‘New Home Ed’ episode is about buying an energy-efficient home. Expert John Corvinelli of Corvinelli Homes takes us through an energy-efficient home, describing the important features and showing us what to look for. He’s excited to be able to share his knowledge and passion with future home buyers. He says ”energy-efficient homes and ‘green’ homes are just buzz words. My goal is to make sure home buyers don’t just use the words, but know exactly what they mean so they make informed decisions when buying a home.”
John was the perfect candidate to shoot our first episode, being so experienced and well-versed in the subject. He’s an honest man who truly cares. We hope this is what you will appreciate from all of our episodes.
Enjoy the first one!
Homes - Virtual Tours or Video Tours?
Posted by admin | July 14th, 2010
Hi – Seb here, CEO of New Home Alert. Our mission has always been to educate future Ottawa home buyers about the local new home industry by creating a positive and enhanced house hunting experience with easy to navigate content via images and videos of thousands of new home listings.
Most of the listings on our website feature 2D elevations and floor plans. These pictures and images can be very useful to give a general idea of what a home will look like once it is built. But for many people, trying to visualize the inside of a home with 2D plans is challenging.
When searching for resale homes on http://www.MLS.ca, I always take the time to view the “multimedia” link, which leads me to a virtual tour of the home. While I appreciate seeing all of those pictures, there’s nothing like seeing a video tour to get a better appreciation of the flow and size of a home.
I’m probably not the only one that appreciates seeing video, since over 1 billion videos are downloaded every day by web users around the world. That is why we have partnered with RealityHomes.ca, a local company specializing in shooting quality HD video tours of residential properties.
Video tour vs virtual tour?
What’s the difference between a video tour and a virtual tour you will ask? Most of the multimedia used to feature resale listings is virtual tours which consist of “stitching” of photos to produce a 360 degree tour of a room in a house. Video tours on the other hand are produced by a videographer who walks through every room in a home and then edits the footage to produce a video.
Personnaly, I feel that video tours present the most realistic view of a home. New Home Alert would like your opinion on the subject. Check out the following two videos, and determine for yourselves…
Virtual Tour
We appreciate your feedback! It will help us develop the best solutions to help you in your search for your next dream home!
Buying a new home brings out the designer in you!
Posted by admin | July 12th, 2010
Hi - Seb here (CEO of New Home Alert). One of the most exciting things about buying a new home is being able to personalize the core design elements of your home: the exterior finishes, the kitchen cabinets, the floors, the bathroom tiles, and so on. With all of the TV shows and magazines dedicated to interior design, most of us are inspired to become amateur interior designers, right?
My business partner Gen is building a custom home in Ottawa, and she’s in the process of choosing the finishes with her home builder. Yesterday at our business meeting, we spent the first hour exchanging ideas on the design of her new kitchen. We probably could have spent another 3 hours on the topic, going through the dozens of magazines she had on kitchen design ideas, but duty called!
Every future home buyer will have to go through this process of choosing finishes, and we know the list of finishes and options can be quite daunting. Because of this, New Home Alert is very excited to introduce a web video series dedicated to educating future home buyers with tips and advice for choosing the finishes of your new home. Our interior design series will feature a young and dynamic Ottawa company - Custom Home Interiors (CHI), who has in fact become a resource of choice for Gen in her new home buying process.
Custom Home Interiors is the ideal resource to help us create these web episodes, since they already work with Ottawa home builders and understand the new home buying process. You can look for episodes to start airing soon on www.newhomealert.ca, or follow us on Twitter or join our Facebook Fan page, where our episodes will be posted as we release them.
I look forward to presenting to all of you the great team at Custom Home Interiors and to get your feedback and suggestions on topics you’d like us to explore.
Oh, and one last thing. I hope this blog posting inspires Gen to start blogging about her own home building experience… What are you waiting for Gen?
How REALTORS® Help?
Posted by admin | May 18th, 2010
Many of you have probably seen the ads running on television promoting the website http://www.howrealtorshelp.ca/. I (Seb Lessard- CEO of New Home Alert) visited the website and found it to be very insightful and easy to navigate. I recommend to everyone entertaining the idea of buying or selling a home to take a look at the website to learn more about the important role of a REALTOR® during the purchasing and selling process. Visitors to the website can find very practical tools (forms and checklists) they can download and use before and during their house hunting experience.
The one thing missing on the http://www.howrealtorshelp.ca/ website is information about buying a new home (pre-construction) and the role of a REALTOR® if one chooses a new construction rather than a resale home.
With 9 out of 10 future home buyers using the web to start their research for their next home, many of them are now finding the choice in new homes available by local homebuilders. In Ottawa and Gatineau, the www.newhomealert.ca website presents more than 1,500 new home listings in over 100 residential communities. Can a REALTOR® help their home buyer clients uncover the choice available? Would it be beneficial for home buyers to have a REALTOR® assist them with buying a new home? You bet!
With “MLS like” search engines catering to the residential construction industry (such as www.newhomealert.ca) and the ‘for sale by owner’ industry (such as www.grapevine.ca), it may be time for REALTORS® to start learning about the role they can play to assist home buyers looking to buy a home not represented by a real estate agent.
There’s no doubt about it, REALTORS® really do have a wealth of knowledge to share with their clients, and their participation in a transaction alleviates many of the hardships involved. With easy to access information via web and mobile technologies, REALTORS® can rise to the top of their very competitive field by simply being able to help in all aspects of their local housing market.
The real estate game will drastically change for real estate agents with the imminent changes to the MLS service and the REALTORS® loss of its exclusive use. Add to this, emerging services where home buyers can find more web resources they can use and in no time, we could see the role of a REALTOR® diminish in importance…unless they become more multi-faceted in the expert knowledge they can share with their clients. Maybe that’s how the role of a REALTOR® will be defined in the future. Just a thought!
Mission: Get to know Ottawa Home Builders
Posted by admin | May 6th, 2010
My first blog posting…ever! I’m a bit nervous, but I’ll get over it! I’m Gen Tremblay, President of NewHomeAlert.ca, and my goal with this blog is to share with you the experiences that I have with our local home builders as I develop relationships with them. What I’m learning is that there is a face behind each builder, and each one of them has a story. But most importantly, somewhere in Ottawa, I think there is a builder that is building the perfect house for you, in your ideal neighbourhood. So my mission is to give you insight on these builders and hopefully help you in your home purchasing decisions.
When I first started out with New Home Alert, I didn’t know the size of the Ottawa new home industry. I could only name five home builders in Ottawa (who shall remain nameless). I’m pretty sure if we compared lists, we would have the same names. So now I’m learning, and my personal commitment is to bring you a series of insightful blog postings, short and sweet. And the first one follows.
The opinions and positions expressed in any blogs, wiki's and comments in the above links do not necessarily reflect those of nha, its partners, members or users.