When most people think of brands, I suspect that they think of companies, products and services. But what about the brand of your city? As cities continue to compete for talent in the global economy, brand is becoming a hugely important differentiator.

I just stumbled upon the Anholt-GfK City Brands Index and here’s their 2013 ranking:

1. London
2. Sydney
3. Paris
4. New York
5. Rome
6. Washington D.C.
7. Los Angeles
8. Toronto
9. Vienna
10. Melbourne

The study looks at 6 key dimensions: presence, place, pre-requisites, people, pulse and potential.

What do you think of the above list?

Here’s a bit more information on how the index was prepared:

"The Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index measures the image of 50 cities based on more than 50 questions related to perceptions of their Presence, Place, Pre-requisite, People, Pulse and Potential.  For the 2013 study, a total of 5,144 interviews were conducted in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.  Adults age 18 or over who are online are interviewed in each country.  Using the most up-to-date online population parameters, the achieved sample in each country has been weighted to reflect key demographic characteristics including age, gender, and education of the online population in that country.  Fieldwork was conducted from May 8th to May 23rd, 2013."

Yesterday the Globe and Mail published an article titled, “Weakening rental picture latest condo market worry." At first glance, this title seems worrisome. Particularly since Toronto’s condo rental market was supposed to be so robust, with vacancy rates hovering around historic lows.

But as I read the article, I was reminded, once again, about how opaque the real estate marketplace is. To make this prediction, the research group quoted in the article mined craigslist postings. Granted, craigslist is probably the largest source for condo rental listings (even more so than MLS), but I don’t think it necessarily makes it a reliable source.

Craigslist is a messy marketplace. You have expired listings; brokers posting listings in the owner section; brokers posting fake listings for the purpose of lead generation; and so on. It seems to me that there could be a huge margin of error if you tried to rely on this data. So I’m not so sure I would put a lot of weight on a supposed 1.6% rental rate decline.

But what does worry me is how imperfect the real estate marketplace is. It’s incredibly hard to get good data and I think that this is bad for everybody involved in real estate. But network effects are a hard thing to overcome, which is why a messy and ugly marketplace such as craigslist can remain so dominant.

When most people think of brands, I suspect that they think of companies, products and services. But what about the brand of your city? As cities continue to compete for talent in the global economy, brand is becoming a hugely important differentiator.

I just stumbled upon the Anholt-GfK City Brands Index and here’s their 2013 ranking:

1. London
2. Sydney
3. Paris
4. New York
5. Rome
6. Washington D.C.
7. Los Angeles
8. Toronto
9. Vienna
10. Melbourne

The study looks at 6 key dimensions: presence, place, pre-requisites, people, pulse and potential.

What do you think of the above list?

Here’s a bit more information on how the index was prepared:

"The Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index measures the image of 50 cities based on more than 50 questions related to perceptions of their Presence, Place, Pre-requisite, People, Pulse and Potential.  For the 2013 study, a total of 5,144 interviews were conducted in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.  Adults age 18 or over who are online are interviewed in each country.  Using the most up-to-date online population parameters, the achieved sample in each country has been weighted to reflect key demographic characteristics including age, gender, and education of the online population in that country.  Fieldwork was conducted from May 8th to May 23rd, 2013."

Yesterday the Globe and Mail published an article titled, “Weakening rental picture latest condo market worry." At first glance, this title seems worrisome. Particularly since Toronto’s condo rental market was supposed to be so robust, with vacancy rates hovering around historic lows.

But as I read the article, I was reminded, once again, about how opaque the real estate marketplace is. To make this prediction, the research group quoted in the article mined craigslist postings. Granted, craigslist is probably the largest source for condo rental listings (even more so than MLS), but I don’t think it necessarily makes it a reliable source.

Craigslist is a messy marketplace. You have expired listings; brokers posting listings in the owner section; brokers posting fake listings for the purpose of lead generation; and so on. It seems to me that there could be a huge margin of error if you tried to rely on this data. So I’m not so sure I would put a lot of weight on a supposed 1.6% rental rate decline.

But what does worry me is how imperfect the real estate marketplace is. It’s incredibly hard to get good data and I think that this is bad for everybody involved in real estate. But network effects are a hard thing to overcome, which is why a messy and ugly marketplace such as craigslist can remain so dominant.