Century21 has launched what they’re calling the “Housing Industry’s First Branded YouTube Channel” – you can find Century21’s Channel here.

They’re hoping to source user-generated (read consumer) videos from home sellers who will work in conjunction with their Century21 agents to produce a video walkthru of their properties.

Videos like this one.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a-FY9Ni0jc[/youtube]

(Nice place – not sure about the double toilet though…)

To spur participation they are offering a $21,000 check and a couple of HDTVs for the best video. Runners up get a digital video camera (probably a Flip or something similar).

Winners will be selected by the Youtube community and the grand prize will be chosen by Century21.

It’s an interesting experiment. And, quite frankly, a better use of Web 2.0 technology than Coldwell Banker’s recent attempts (see Coldwell and Banker Back At Helm).

A couple things come to mind though.

It’s probably not going to generate much buzz from the “Youtube community” – I doubt many viewers on YT are seriously looking at real estate right now. They’re probably too busy watching videos like this Unbelievable Hockey Fight (way crazy).

What it may do, and I suspect is C21’s ulterior motive in all of this, is encourage their Realtors to seriously start thinking about how they can begin using video to market properties.

As silly and Mickey Mouse as some of these videos may seem, it could end up being a great exercise in educating C21 agents and home sellers on the dos and don’t of real estate video.

And if that’s the end result of this campaign, then it would be a success in my books.

What I’d love to see is C21 publish their learnings at the end of this promotion on what real estate buyers want from a walkthru video. Which videos were the winners and why?

(BTW – RE video hopefuls should take some cues from IntoTheBox.tv – now there’s some great real estate video!)

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