By Stephen Chung, Zeppelin Partners Limited

Send suggestions and comments to stephenchung@real-estate-tech.com

3G is hot! Touted the media, the promoters and the providers. Not only can you gain access to information on the net much faster, you can also see the people you are talking to on your mobile video phone much clearer and so on. Life or lifestyle will be very different and exciting from now on, so they say. While basically being a supporter of new technological applications, the author harbors a few questions in this instance. Do we really wish to be seen by clients, customers, relatives, friends etc who call us up at 3am in the morning while we are in bed? Do you really wish to let your boss who is waiting for you to show up at a meeting know that you are still in a taxi when you are telling him or her that you are already downstairs at the lobby? Worse still, do you wish your colleagues to know that you are actually attending an interview at the competitor¡¦s office when you tell them that you are just going out for a stroll during lunch? Switching off the screen will just add more suspicions and life will get very exciting (nerve-racking?) indeed. This also means business opportunities, and it is just a matter of time before some IT genius would come up with some software or virtual reality graphics for mobile phones that would enable you to look better than you really are (e.g. masking all your pimples), be seen at any place other than the one you are actually at, or be seen smiling all the time when in fact you are up to your 'x@#&yzxx' neck answering some stupid questions being thrown at you by prospective real estate purchasers such as "Is the place spooked?". What do they expect the agent to say?"Yes sir / madam, Casper [the friendly ghost] lives here"?

Anyhow, the following websites need no masking, touching up, or beefing up, as they are knowledge and content-rich:

a)     http://www.botspot.com/

Do you know what a ¡§bot¡¨ is? According to an article in the SCMP, a ¡§bot¡¨ is a software tool that harnesses the power of computer algorithms for the purpose of digging through data. In simple language, it helps you find things on the web. This website deals in bots. Not only can you learn more about them, it has a list of bots under various classifications such as news bots, fun bots, government bots, email bots and stock (equities) bots. 

b)     http://www.callan.com/resource/periodicals/ 

This is a commercial website and is operated by a company called Callan Associates Inc. Apart from company introduction, the website also contains various periodicals and researches on the USA capital and investment markets. Thus, it is useful to those who wish to monitor the investment environment in North America. 

 c)      http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwrer/Annotated/Service_Providers/Advisors.htm 

 This webpage is part of the Georgia State University¡¦s website and contains a categorized list of real estate service providers ranging from fund managers, ratings agencies, advisors to brokers, institutional consultants and the like. You can also click on the links of these companies to enter their websites where applicable. The list in some ways gives you an idea of how the American real estate ¡¥market¡¦ has grown in complexity, scale and coverage, especially toward the finance side of things.

 d)     http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwrer/Annotated/Information_Sources/Publications.htm

 Again, this webpage is also part of the Georgia State University¡¦s website and contains a categorized list of economic and real estate market data and information sources. It should be useful for those in research studies and / or seeking data and information to better gauge the global and North American economies. 

 e)     http://www.jimrogers.com

 Mr. Jim Rogers is an investor and has traveled all over the world, from west to east passing through Russia and China and numerous smaller countries, and north and south through the Americas, on his motorbike (nowadays he drives a car) with friends. Prior to this, he had worked for / with Mr. George Soros (in the unlikely case that you had not heard of Mr. Soros, he was the guy that betted against the sterling and won a decade ago, or more recently, as the mastermind behind the Asian Financial Crisis). The site is interesting and useful because apart from the sight-seeing, Jim also describes the cultures, the administrations, the markets, and the like, giving you his opinions and reasons why he will or will not invest in a particular place. Aspiring for those who wish to become a global investor.

 f)        http://www.stat.go.jp/english/1.htm

This site contains the statistics of Japan ranging from economics, demographical aspects to housing conditions. It is not easy to search and digest but with patience, it should be useful and enlightening, especially on some long-held but probably out-dated beliefs or impressions of Japan. Investors and consultants with an eye for Japan may find the site of particular application (though the author must confess he likes holidaying more than investing in Japan).

g)     http://www.mytophome.com/

This site focuses on the Guangzhou real estate market and is actually a creation of our fellow surveyor Mr. S. C. Liu. The site offers a range of services such as marketing, buying and selling, interiors and so on and contains information on the residential sector and projects. It also offers a platform for mortgages. It is written in simplified Chinese.

Ever wonder why there are only 2 sexes (male and female) in the world we live? This was what the author and a few friends pondered the other day and our conclusion was that this was purely a mathematical phenomenon. In a 2-sex world, A needs to like B and vice versa, a 2-way communication (naturally, we are talking about the modern civilized society where marriage is not coerced) before anything happens. This is tough enough and it usually uses up a lot of time, effort and money. For the 3-sex 'beings' (if they ever existed), A needs to like B and C, B needs to like A and C, and likewise for C with A and B, a 6-way communication. Now imagine the complexity for 4-sex, 5-sex, 6-sex beings and so on. They might have existed before, but surely not for long.

Notes:

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