New YouTube Series Hopes To Spark Ridgefield Real Estate Sales [VIDEO]

RIDGEFIELD, CT — A local realtor who is forecasting a residential real estate crisis is taking the matter into his own hands, and onto YouTube.

Mark Pires, a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway in New Canaan, is not bullish on southwestern Connecticut real estate's prospects. He believes the threat of COVID-19 that chased wealthy homebuyers out of New York City and into the Nutmeg State has lost much of its bite.

"We've been living in a bubble for the last two years, people have been selling homes and getting way over asking price. And as a real estate agent, I said, 'this is going to change, we're going to have to start selling our towns again, very soon,'" Pires told Patch.

So the veteran video content producer launched a new series, in which he visits those towns, and hypes their virtues while exploring some of their history. Pires began his video Odyssey in southwestern Connecticut, and made Ridgefield one of his first stops.

Pires records about three hours of raw material each week, which he edits down into a 21-25 minute program. He says the length is perfect for a syndicator who wants to distribute the show nationally after inserting some commercials. A new episode of "Get to Know America" drops on YouTube every Sunday night at 8 p.m.

The Ridgefield episode swings past and through all the town hot spots, including Ballard Park, the Ridgefield Playhouse, the Prospector Theatre, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, downtown ("just an adorable little area"), the Keeler Tavern and the Historical Society. Pires also drops into the office of First Selectman Rudy Marconi, who handles the apparently unscheduled visit genially.

The realtor believes he is doing a better job creating promotional videos for Connecticut towns than the towns often do for their own municipal websites.

"I've seen some of these town videos, they're terrible," he said. "They spent $250,000 on (one video). It was so impersonal, it was like watching these people smiling. And I'm like, 'that's not what people want.'"

The Fairfield native believes he has a more sensitive finger on the popular pulse, with a YouTube videography to back it up. Pires has been producing a live show on the streaming site every day since New Year's Eve 2018. He is also a singer/songwriter, with 183 songs on iTunes and a 15th album due out shortly.

He says he hopes his feverish output inspires people "to realize they can do anything, because I'm married with three kids, and I continue to show up."

So far, Pires has been creating the town promotional videos free of charge, to gin up interest in the area's real estate. He says that hasn't always been easy for some town officials to grasp.

"I even had one of the towns say to me, you know, you have to pay for a permit to shoot, I said, 'I'm doing this for free to get people to move to your town!'"

Soon, he hopes. Pires believes there is a post-pandemic reckoning coming:

"We're at a point now where the rates are scaring people."

Pires says buyers and sellers can still expect bidding wars, except soon all the bids will be below the initial asking price.

Prospective Wilton homebuyers have seen much of their disposable income "wiped away in the last month and a half," Pires explained. "So now you're looking at a regular market at a time when we have inflation, and people aren't making more money. So this is all a recipe for disaster…people who were excited about buying real estate are now thinking differently."