Like most people I read articles on this site and my guess is that it's a pretty popular site for people wanting to relocate to Medellin.
In the past I've commented on articles, often with some criticism and at least adding points that I think have been left out of articles. The site asks for contributions - although they are moderated. Often articles from the site are linked here, again no issue, but I'm wondering whether ML is becoming less balanced in it's outlook.
Today I posted two comments - adding to threads which had other comments, all of which were favorable. My comments made some other points - and both went into moderation - and both subsequently disappeared. I'd been moderated out. Again, it's someone's website so they can delete what they want, but let's look at what my points were
The first article was a new one about the best neighborhood in Medellin. To save suspense it looks like Sabaneta, the home of the writer once again might shade it as the intelligent choice. I might not agree with the conclusion, but he or she who writes the article gets to choose the winners.
One of my points was on the focus in the article of the Estratos system. For those who live here we understand roughly what the different levels mean in terms of quality or standard of life. At this point I need to stress that I'm not about to pick a fight with those who have chosen to live in 3 or 4s. I know that there are many people on this site who live happily in those areas and would have no wish to 'move up the ladder'. But my point, at least for those that have never visited Medellin was the stress on the terminology around the areas. It is true that level 3 and level 4 are 'middle class' in Colombian terms. But for someone looking to move to Medellin is that an accurate description of what they'll expect to find? I'd argue that they're not what someone from the US would understand as a 'middle class neighborhood'. Your next door neighbors may be fine people but this isn't the world of Ozzie and Harriet Restrepo with two cars in the garage and a big screen TV in every room. Equally Poblado is a 'wealthy' area. Again, no complaints by Colombian terms but for most American when they see Calle 10 they are unlikely to mistake it for Park Avenue.
There was a second article on 'Successfully Closing on Real Estate in Colombia'. Again, not a bad article and one that people will no doubt refer to and link to in the future.
My issues on this weren't large but I think important. The article was written by the house lawyer at Casacol. In the article he doesn't hide that he works for Casacol (he takes his time in revealing it though) although he doesn't make it clear that it's a real estate company that's principal business is selling real estate to Gringos. He also references 'a very good article' on buying and investing in property in Colombia without mentioning that the author is in fact his boss, the owner of Casacol. Good lawyers you might argue would know to disclose such things. After all what point does advice become promotion?
One other point that I raised was the conflict of interest in using an in-house lawyer at a Real Estate Investment company (the article talks about how quickly they can process paperwork). After all the seller is paying a commission to the Real Estate company (or the company is selling their own inventory) meaning that the buyer is rather disadvantaged. It might be convenient to have a one-stop shop but as I suggested getting an external lawyer to review any documents might at least be a consideration for any buyer.
Perhaps there were other reasons my comments were moderated out - or potentially some technical issue but I do have concerns that the site may be coming nothing more than a front for the local Real Estate industry - or perhaps it always has been and I just didn't see it?
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