News & Press Releases
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Media
Ian Watt has been featured and appeared in the New York Times, Inc. Magazine, Vancouver Sun, Province, 24 Hours, Inman News, Better Homes and Gardens, The Future of Real Estate Marketing, Global TV, CBC Television, CityTV, Inman News, REM Real Estate Marketing, Business in Vancouver, and various other web, print and radio programs.
Press Photos 
Ian Watt on Global News December 9, 2008
Ian Watt on Global News Court Ordered Sales Dec 08
Ian Watt shows a condo in the dark, 'cause the previous homeloaner skipped out without paying the electric bill. A $700,000 condo marked down and now on the market for $499,000 - yet this news story goes on to say that this is the first time people have just gotten up and walked away, leaving everything.
Ian Watt on City Televisions Realty Television
When Leo Laporte’s tv show, The Lab with Leo was canclled earlier this year by Rogers Television, he didn’t get on the phone and try to shop it to another network. Instead, he rented out a second floor of his workspace in Pentaluma, California and created his own network – online. Such is broadcasting in 2008. You don’t need a traditional network to get your message out. Leo spent $30 000 on equipment for his studio and created his own.
Digg creator, Kevin Rose, did the same thing. When TechTV moved away from technology and the web to focus on gaming, he left the traditional network and created his own, Revision3. In 2007 Revision3 distributed 25 million copies of their 17 shows, many of them starring old TechTV personalities. They used to say the revolution will be televised. We’ll have to update the battle cry a bit – the revolution is being streamed. Video is not the next frontier for the web, it’s the current frontier. Bloggers no longer write their entries, they tape them and post them as video blogs, or vlogs. 
You don’t have to spend 30 grand to get your own video empire on the internet, as little as $100 can get you the new Creative Vado, a handheld video camera no bigger than your cell phone. It has easy one button access for shooting video, and is primed to get your content online instantly. Along the bottom, a simple USB plug slides out so you can hook up to your computer easily and with one click get your project on YouTube. Grab a webcam and visit a website like Ustream, or StickCam and you can have a live show where you can interact with viewers in a chatroom. StickCam is what Leo uses for his TWiT Live Network, I use Ustream and the built in iSight in my MacBook to stream live from the 95Crave studios each afternoon. Robert Scoble is, arguably, the most prolific blogger on the web. He has embraced video as part of something he calls “the world wide talkshow.” He uses a Nokia N95 cell phone and Qik.com to stream video from his phone live to the internet. Scoble interviews many of the leading web innovators on a daily basis, some of them unscheduled. He famously approached Henry Kissinger at a conference in Switzerland and startled his subject with “Hello! You’re live on the internet.” While Scoble is streaming with his phone, he can interact with viewers on the screen of his phone through a chat room. Stephen Jagger from Reachd runs seminars helping small business maximize their websites, which includes adding video. “Get a camera, any camera,” Stephen urges. “You’re the expert, educate your customers. Just do something.” One of Stephen’s clients is real estate agent Ian Watt. Ian uses his video camera to vlog from the car between appointments. He announces new listings, reviews the marketplace and complains about lazy realtors using lockboxes. Video is helping Ian show off his personality and giving prospective clients a deeper look at who he is and what he does. Will it help his business? Most likely. Before Gary Vaynerchuk added a wine vlog to his parent’s store, Wine Library, they were selling $4 million a year. 
CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Press Releases:
June 4, 2007: A New Shift in Real Estate Marketing
News Items:
Vancouver, British Columbia
Diana Becker bought a two-bedroom in the Jameson House, which is set to open in 2009.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE
ON a recent Wednesday evening at the downtown Gotham Steakhouse here, about 100 people gathered around an open bar for a party given by Ian Watt, a Century 21 broker, who had invited clients to thank them for buying property in the city.
One of the guests was Annu Gill. With her fiancé, Rick Gill, who coincidentally has the same last name, she bought a 1,200-square-foot condominium at the Sheraton Wall Centre, a 42-story hotel with 74 units in downtown Vancouver. The condo cost one million Canadian dollars, currently worth about $1.03 million.
“When I try to explain to friends in the States how much it costs here, they don’t believe me,” Ms. Gill, 29, who is a real estate broker, said of the city’s high prices. “They say, ‘You’re lying.’”
But $840 a square foot — which is how much the couple paid for their condo — is not unusual these days.
Downtown Vancouver is the most expensive housing market in Canada, according to a survey of 21 cities worldwide released last April by Century 21. The average sales price for a condo in Vancouver was around $419,750 in 2007, up 14.6 percent from last year, according to Royal Le Page Real Estate Services. The average sales price in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, was about $241,818, up 15.7 percent from last year, and in Montreal, $201,818, up 4.6 percent.
The number of homes in Vancouver selling for more than $2 million also rose this year, by 48 percent, according to Re/Max Associates. The higher prices reflect years of price gains of 15 to 20 percent, according to Helmut Pastrick, the chief economist for the Credit Union Central of British Columbia.
Fueling the high-end market are foreign and second-home buyers, he said, though not necessarily from the United States. The weak American dollar, which for the first time in decades is worth less than the Canadian dollar, has been making real estate in Canada more expensive for Americans.
Other foreign buyers make up a significant percentage of the market, according to Ian Gillespie, the president of Westbank Projects. The company is building several residential towers downtown, including the 60-story Living Shangri-La, which will be Vancouver’s tallest building after it is completed in 2009.
“This is a very multicultural city,” said Mr. Gillespie, who cited as an example a pharmaceutical executive from the Middle East, who recently bought a 1,700-square-foot $3.65 million condo at the Fairmont Pacific Rim.
The city’s population has grown substantially as a result. In 2006, there were 36,321 more people living in Vancouver than in 2005, according to Statistics Canada, and 72 percent of the newcomers were immigrants.
It’s not hard to imagine why the city is so appealing: Vancouver has been described as Canada’s version of San Francisco. It has a cosmopolitan feel, yet it is surrounded by mountains and water. The temperate climate attracts retirees, while the vibrant urban lifestyle draws young singles. The economy, supported by forest products, mining and an active film industry, is also growing, thanks in part to the development associated with serving as host of the 2010 winter Olympic Games.
The most expensive condo on the market in downtown Vancouver right now is a 7,000-square-foot waterfront penthouse listed for $18.2 million. The 38-year-old owner, an entrepreneur, said he bought the condo for $3 million four years ago, then sunk millions more into renovations.
Jamie MacDougall, an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty, said that the condo was still considered “cheap” compared with comparable properties in New York or San Francisco. It has been on the market since July.
Although price increases have slowed this year, Vancouver’s housing market is not experiencing a bubble, Mr. Pastrick said. Less aggressive mortgage underwriting practices have helped shield Canada from the credit squeeze that swept through the subprime mortgage market in the United States after the fallout in housing.
Bob Rennie, the president of Rennie Marketing Systems, a real estate marketing company, said Canadians typically put down 20 percent in nonrefundable deposits.
Every crane downtown is sitting over a building that is 75 to 100 percent sold out, with large deposits in place, Mr. Rennie said. “So the consumer is committed, and the developer is not at risk with construction,” he noted. There are about 50 condo towers under construction in the downtown area.
In 2006, Diana Becker, the owner of a culinary tourism company, paid $900,000 for a two-bedroom in the 37-story Jameson House, which is scheduled to open in 2009. Ms. Becker, who now lives on the outskirts of downtown, said she had been attracted to the development’s design. “It feels very Spanish Moroccan,” she said. Ms. Becker says she is also looking forward to being able to walk to her favorite downtown restaurants like Le Crocodile.
Not everybody is enthusiastic about Vancouver’s growth. To make room for some projects, hundreds of single-room-occupancy hotel rooms for low-income residents have been lost, said David Eby, a lawyer with the Pivot Legal Society, a legal advocacy group. High prices are pushing out middle-income renters and buyers, he added.
Gordon Price, the director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, said the city erred by abandoning its commitment to maintain a 33 percent low-income housing mix in the Southeast False Creek site. The development is being built initially to house athletes during the Olympics. Later, it is to be converted into condominiums and town houses selling for $600,000 to $6 million.
The city reverted to a 20 percent low-income housing mix because of concerns about cost, said Jennifer Young, a city spokeswoman, explaining that there had been a drop in government financing for low-income housing.
Darek Cole, for one, says he feels lucky to afford a home in the city. “Vancouver is a difficult place to get into compared to other cities,” said Mr. Cole, 26, who works for a marketing company. He paid $270,000 for a 600-square-foot condo in the city’s Downtown Eastside neighborhood.
“I knew it would be a good investment,” he said.
Ian Watt on the CBC
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Wednesday » May 14 » 2008
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Amateur videographers turn blogs into bucks
One blogger turned mom-and-pop shop into $60-million-a-year wine store business
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Ian Watt has never had any video training. He just got his first video camera for Christmas. But now he is the star of his own business video, transforming his blog into a live show in which he tours Vancouver dispensing advice, hitting real estate hot buttons, winning over fans and enraging critics. "I just put the camera on the dashboard in a cup holder and drive around," said Watt, a realtor with Macdonald Realty's downtown office. "I just chat. "Sometimes it is just for public awareness. Ninety-nine per cent of people who hire us go to our website first, and when they see this, they can say, 'Okay, I can understand his personality a little more.' "The key thing is we're not trying to be media people. We're just trying to be ourselves." Feedback can be fast. One posting had barely gone online when a complimentary message from a local real estate lawyer popped up on Watt's e-mail. Others are not so complimentary. Response to another video in which Watt raised a controversial issue didn't come in terms that are printable. On Tuesday, Watt was in a class of 20 aspiring Cecil B. DeMilles at a sold out session run by Reachd.com, a Vancouver training company launched by Stephen Jagger and Mike Stephenson, who also founded the real estate Web hosting and design site Ubertor. Fourteen of the attendees were real estate agents and the rest represented a cross-section, including from the legal, recruiting and marketing professions. For a $200 fee, participants got the afternoon training session, plus a $150 Flip Ultra videocamera that takes up to an hour of video and plugs straight into a computer to download. Bad video, or good business? The latter, says Jagger, pointing to Gary Vaynerchuk's WineLibrary video blog at tv.winelibrary.com, which has transformed his parents' small New Jersey liquor store into a $60-million-a-year wine business. Amateur video draws online crowds, as YouTube can attest. "PR companies can spend a lot of money on commercials, but it is really the content that sells," said Jagger. "It's not the polish. In fact, this is better because it is so real. "It is way better than just having flyers and newsletters and blogs. It is a great way to show who you are and what you are all about." While Reachd.com students might not be ready to emulate Vaynerchuk's colourful delivery, instructor Rodney Bartlett said they should aim to produce short and interesting clips that will keep viewers' attention to the end. "The key is having an opinion," said Jagger. "You don't want to be too cautious, too generic, too safe. "It won't be very interesting." Tim Ayres, a realtor with Royal LePage in Sooke on Vancouver Island, was so keen to add the new technology that he got on a ferry Tuesday morning to join the class that was being held upstairs in a pub in downtown Vancouver. "I write a pretty active blog, and video has been something I have been meaning to get into from the beginning," he said. "This stuff is really up-and-coming. Nobody is doing it in my area." gshaw@png.canwest.com © The Vancouver Sun 2008
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