Global Condo Center, a Vancouver-based real estate promotional marketing firm, just launched new platforms for property developers to showcase their projects to prospective buyers in both the real and the virtual worlds.

At Urban & Resort Condo Centers in downtown Vancouver and Calgary, condominium planners can choose from among 25 options for displaying their upcoming projects at various stages of development. Other such centres, for Seattle, Los Angeles and Boston, are now in the planning stages.

The new wrinkle that launched on Tuesday takes condo listings into the virtual world of Second Life. Urban & Resort Condo Center can now post condo listings on Second Life to enable buyers to view properties, some with changeable design options and interactive 3D floor plans. To search Urban & Resort Condo Center properties on Second Life, users must visit www.globalcondocenter.com and click on the ‘teleport to Second Life’ button. From there, they will be directed to Second Life’s ‘Orientation Island,’ where they will create an avatar to access Global Condo Center Island and its micro sales centres.

Condo developers can also feature their projects on www.globalcondocenter.com, the company’s Internet search portal, which is capable of showcasing new developments in 2,200 cities and regions around the world. A second website, www.previewcondocenter.com, is used when developers have an upcoming project.

‘The development of virtual worlds opens up another exciting avenue – one where buyers can actually walk the floor, change the design and experience the property as if they were actually there,’ explains Cliff Bowman, president of Global Condo Center. ‘This multi-platform approach offers buyers, agents and developers a variety of shopping and marketing mediums for their convenience.’