The other day, one of our monitoring tools picked a very interesting video on YouTube. It’s an exerpt from the popular British comedy sketch show, Man Stroke Woman (yes, an odd name, I agree). I had thought about posting it on one of our client’s blogs, but honestly I figiured I’d have a hard time explaining the humor to sometimes humorless VPs of Marketing.

So, without further ado, here’s the sketch for your review:

Forget the dirty, oily garage of the past -- soon it will be one of the most technologically-connected rooms in your home.

While oil — and gas — prices have been steadily falling over the past months, there’s no doubt that today’s consumers are demanding high-efficiency vehicles, such as gas-electric mix, fuel cell or even pure electric. Some are even calling hybrid sales a recession-defying phenomena, though recent sales have started to fall flat.

Nevertheless, the home of the future will certainly feature changes in one room that barely anyone could have foreseen even a couple of years ago. Soon, garages will become “smart.”

According to Michael Brylawski, cofounder and leader of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Mobility + Vehicle Efficiency (MOVE) Team, “”This is where your car, the house, and the electricity system meet.”

Not too soon in the future, your electric-hyrbid car will plug into power and data stations at home, near the office and even parking garages for recharging. While the initial push of energy will be from the grid to the car’s batteries, it is expected that those same batteries will serve another purpose — to store energy for the overall grid and serve as a way for power companies to smooth out the naturally fluctuating supply of energy.

In addition, that same connection could interface with computers that monitor the “health” of your car and its systems, serve as a way to monitor diagnostics and driving history and even be a way to sync inhome and onboard systems like media libraries (music and video), an integrated phone’s address book and downloads to GPS-driven services like restaurant guides.

Savvy iPhone-equipped homebuyers have one more thing to covet -- Trulia announced this week that a new App for the iPhone is available (for free).

An article this week in Newsweek talks about consumer’s new fascination with self-directing their own new home search (the article starts off with a quaint recant of how the author — some decade or so ago — thought he was on the cutting edge, reviewing new listings his realtor faxed (!) over, then sat in the back of the realtor’s car as he was driven from home to home).

While many consumers still rely on the services of a realtor or broker, still more are doing the initial search themselves online, using popular listing sites like Craigslist, Trulia and Oodle, then gettign directions via Google Maps or MapQuest.

iPhone owners — ever the technosavvy and often envied — join their BlackBerry brethren this week with a new iPhone App from Trulia. According to reviews and information from the Newsweek article, homebuyers using the App can now:

• Search for homes by current location (we hope it uses the iPhone G3′s GPS abilities to determine what’s close).
• Ability to map your trip to a home from your current location (again, GPS is the key here).
• Ability to view current open houses.
• It’s easy to call or e-mail the listing agent.

Initial reviews on the Apple iTunes’ App Store were a bit lukewarm (it always seems these days that there’s a bit of a learning curve associated with this new type of software development — future versions always seem to behave much better and the better developers are quick to address user’s feedback). In short, critics panned the App:

• There’s no MLS record referenced or provided.
• If you have an account on the online version (where you can save searches), you can’t log onto your account with your iPhone. We’d anticipate this being fixed soon.
• Maps can’t be moved or zoomed (we iPhone users love the “pinch”) — they seem like static images.
• Searching could be improved with search criteria like keywords and zip codes.
• You can’t view multiple photos for a particular listing.

As noted, it’s a fun tool to use when you’re out and about with your trusty iPhone. As with most new iPhone Apps, keep your expectations low for the first couple or few weeks and hope that little update button on your iTunes lights up soon!

Nancy Keates of The Wall Street Journal recently reported on her experience in building a new home while making some interesting observations that are a result of the woes of the economy in general and homebuilding industry specifically.

While the article begins by playing on buyers’ perceptions that it is currently cheaper to buy an existing home than construct a new one, for those consumers that conclude a home built to their specifications is superior to one that they might settle on based on cost, there hasn’t been a better time to build new than now.

For instance, while the cost of building a new home in 2007 rose 2.4% from the year prior, this was over 60% less than the increase in costs from 2005 to 2006. In fact, when the housing slump ends, it is likely we’ll see a return to higher construction costs, making today’s rates look even more attractive.

And while housing starts continue to drop (to a seasonally adjusted, annual rate of just 975,000 nationwide according to a Commerce Department report published in mod-June, the increasing unemployment rate brings one bright spot — there are now more contractors, project managers and laborers available than ever before. The result? Your new home is likely to get more attention than before and even be completed ahead of schedule. Look for this benefit to end once housing starts heat up and the demand for skilled labor increases.

And finally, the costs of many building components — from lumber to finished goods — are feeling the pinch of the stressed economy as well. Weekly price reports on wood products has recently shown falling prices compared to previous years and many contractors are feeling increasingly confident they can negotiate better deals on your behalf due to excess inventory and supplier’s struggling for any extra sale. When the housing market comes around again, don’t bet this will be the case.

So, what’s a stressed and perhaps nervous homebuilder or developer to do with this information? Well, take a lesson from experienced investors — when prices are plummeting, there are more opportunities than ever before. Take this same tact when working with your buyers. Explain to them the advantages of planning and building a home that perfectly matches their needs and desires — but also include things like the added attention they’ll now receive, the prospect of accelerated delivery schedules and even that you now have access to lower-cost supplies, labor and other hard goods associated with the building of their new home.

There’s a silver lining to every story — as they say in public relations, there’s no such thing as “bad PR” — it’s all in how you deliver it.

Each finds condo and townhome living in our nation’s urban centers appealing — the Baby Boomers favor the wide choices of dining and entertainment — as well as the many cultural attractions — while the Millennials, seeking refuge from the suburban sprawl they typically grew up with, find the nightlife and large groups of similarly-minded peers attractive. Both groups, of course, love the public transportation options, typically rail line and bus, though the relative closeness of everything also appeals to those seeking a healthy lifestyle — or at least those who think they do!

While most urban builders are seeing only a diluted version of the housing crisis that is shaking and quaking their suburban brethren, there seems to be even more reasons now why homebuyers will be returning to our urban areas.

Smart homebuilders might want to study who their developments appeal to and style their sales approach for each demographic. We know of one builder in Omaha, Bluestone Development, who’s rowhomes specifically reach out to Baby Boomers seeking to make 50 the new 20. And their loft home product is so twenty-centric that their online floorplans show typical furniture layouts for units named The Lounge, The Gamer and The Bartender!