BY JOHN N. FRANK

One message that came across in numerous sessions during last week’s Real Estate Connect conference, sponsored by Inman News, was that video has captured the “next hot trend” mantle for real estate Web sites and individual real estate professionals’ blogs.

Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president, digital operations, for The New York Times Company, spoke about how the Times was about to roll out video for its real estate ads.

Charlie Young, chief operating officer with Coldwell Banker Real Estate, said that his company plans to do more with video on its Web site and elsewhere.

And even conference host and organizer Brad Inman was telling attendees to buy one of the new line of small video cameras that can plug directly into a computer’s USB port to instantly transfer property videos for use online.

A Generational Thing?

I have no doubt that buyers would be interested in seeing video of houses they might want to buy, but the discussions about video also reminded me of a basic difference between my generation (Baby Boomers) and all the Gen Y folks out there, including my grown children, who are either now or will soon be entering the housing market.

When I was looking for a house in late 2006, I got in my car daily and drove around the neighborhood where I wanted to buy looking for “For Sale” signs. My wife and I spent numerous weekends going to open houses, both to check out the market and to find a real estate pro with whom we wanted to work with in buying a new place and selling my old duplex.

I can’t imagine my children or anyone in their generational cohort doing that. They prefer to go online and do all their searching there. They believe so much in the integrity of the online experience that seeing a video of a house is just like being at the house for them, I suspect. It’s the same attitude they take to instant messaging a friend – they consider that the same as talking face-to-face.

That’s bound to have an impact on how you work with Gen Y clients. Something to think about.