Author Archives: Dustin Luther

About Dustin Luther

Founder and original blogger on Rain City Guide, Dustin has since started #InterestedIn Marketing where his team provides content and social media services that helps industry experts earn recognition as thought leaders. You can find me on Twitter (@tyr) and LinkedIn (/DustinLuther)

Rain City Radio: A West Seattle Story

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I really enjoyed today’s conversation with Tracy Records of the West Seattle Blog.  Tracy shared a ton of great stories with us and I learned a ton…

Click here to listen to the entire interview!

And below are some links to some of the things we discussed:

We covered a lot of great topics in the interview including her perspective on the elements of the media that has fundamentally changed.  As someone with 25 years experience in the traditional media space AND a successful local blogger, her perspective was fascinating!

Click here to listen to the entire interview!

*Note: If you’re wondering why this post looks different then when it was originally published, I didn’t like the outline that I originally provided, so I changed it around a bunch.

Pocket Listings in Seattle?

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I was a meeting this weekend with an agent in Southern California where he showed me a website he says he visits a couple times a week.   A competitor had built up a large repository of “pocket listings” for the Beverly Hills area and then stuck them behind a registration wall… of which he visited regularly.

Being a Rain City Guide kinda guy, I’m not keen to put things behind registration, but I am fascinated by the idea of putting together a page of pocket listings as a resource for Seattle area agents and consumers.  If you’re an agent who serves any area supported by the NWMLS and you’d like to advertise a pocket listing on RCG, let me know in the comment below.

If I get 5 or more pocket listings in the comment section of this post in the near future, then I’ll assume there really is demand for such a tool in the Seattle area and I’ll start up a new page (right between “About RCG” and “Seattle Agent Recommendations”) for pocket listings.

Here’s the only information I need from you:

  • Neighborhood
  • One to two sentence description of the listing
  • Contact information (name & phone)

For obvious reasons, I’m assuming that most agents won’t want to list the address of the pocket listing, but if you want to include that information as well, all the better.  And just to be clear, this is a free service of RCG.   Assuming it becomes a lot of work, I may charge a nominal fee to cover my time and/or automate the system, but I honestly don’t see that happening in the near future.

Are there rules for getting your pocket listing on RCG? Most definitely!   But I don’t even know what they are yet.   However, I will definitely figure out some rules if people start abusing the system.    Some potential rules that come to mind: (1)  Only allow agents to list their top 3 pocket listings, (2) must let me know if a pocket listing gets listed on the MLS and/or (3) must let me know if a pocket listing is no longer available. But even those rules aren’t hard-and-fast yet until I get some feedback from the community.

So, if you are an agent intersted in getting some additional exposure for your pocket listings, let me know!

A West Seattle Conversation!

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Screenshot from the West Seattle Blog

I’m extremely excited about tomorrow’s Rain City conversation!

I invite the entire RCG community to join us at 4pm on Tuesday for a conversation with Tracy Record, the local community expert who runs the West Seattle blog.

My plan is to talk with her about the vibe of West Seattle, what’s she’s learned running the blog and what some of her favorite neighborhood places.  In addition, I’ll open up the phone lines to YOU so please come with your questions for this person behind this wonderful local resource!

If you’d like to join the conversation, then please consider calling in.   All the details on our the Rain City conversation page of Talkshoe!

And to answer the most common question from last week: You can listen into the conversation by calling in using ANY phone… However, if you want to get on-the-air, then it really helps me if you log into TalkShoe so that you can ping me in the chat room when you have a question or comment! Again, all the details (and there aren’t many) are on the Rain City conversation page of Talkshoe!

By the way, I’ll announce our guest for next week’s show tomorrow on the show!   I have a feeling that this series of podcasts are going to turn into something really special so set aside 4pm on Tuesdays so you can always take part!   And if you haven’t tried taking part in a group podcast yet, I highly recommend logging into this show.  You might be surprised just how much you enjoy it!

UPDATE: You can listen to this interview by clicking here or going to the post where I outlined the interview about with Tracy from the West Seattle blog

Join us for a Rain City conversation on Tuesday afternoon!

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I’ve been having such a blast with the 4realz Roundtable conversations, that I’m going to bring the conversation to Rain City Guide!

a Rain City conversationThe idea: this Tuesday at 4pm, I’m going to host a conversation with the Rain City Guide community. There are many ways to join the conversation and all of them are easy. All the information you need is located at this website: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/17904, but here is a summary:

  1. You can call in to the # provided (724-444-7444), Call ID: 17904, to listen to the conversation.
  2. You can join the chat by going to the website that TalkShoe provides for a Rain City conversation any time during the scheduled call (4pm to 5pm on Tuesday)
  3. Getting fancier: You can sign up for a (free) account with TalkShoe and then join the chat (step #2). This will allow me (as the “host” of the show, I’ll be able to know who you are and identify your chats!
  4. Fanciest: You can sign up for an account (step #3), join the chat (step #2) and call in (step #1).

If you opt for step #4, then I can have you join in the conversation during our podcast!

The way that I’ve been managing the conversations during the 4realz Roundtable is that I invite a few “guests” who are unmuted during the entire show. And then, just to make sure things don’t get too overwhelming, I closely monitor the live “chat” during the show and if someone has a question or wants to make a point, then I “unmute” them. For people simply listening to the show, it sounds like a live radio interview show, but to the people taking waiting to “come on air” they can actively chat with all the others waiting to come on air.

So, for the first episode of a Rain City conversation, I’ve invited EVERY Rain City Guide contributor to be live on the call… The first order of business will be to go around the “virtual” roundtable and let each contributor talk for two minutes about what brought them to Rain City Guide.

Then quickly, I want to open up the mic to your comments, questions, tips, etc.

  • Are you moving to the Seattle area and want to ask about great neighborhoods?
  • Do you have a specific question for a contributor?
  • Want to share your experience with the Seattle real estate market?

My hope is that this first episode will be a lively and educational conversation, but it will only work if you join us! So, please consider taking an hour out of your Tuesday afternoon to take part in a Rain City conversation! I can’t wait to hear from you!

RCG on the Move (video)

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Video outline:

Previous updates

New servers:

Looking for ideas:

  • New features: Neighborhood focus
  • New design
  • New contributors

Welcome NYT's readers!

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I had a wonderful conversation with Stephanie Rosenbloom a few days ago and was thrilled to help her out with her story about using social networks (and Facebook in particular) for business purposes.

In the story, she mentioned my internet marketing seminars for real estate professionals as well as the associated Facebook group for 4RealzEd.

And while you’re here at Rain City Guide, consider checking out one of the many great articles about the Seattle real estate market that we’ve written over the 3+ years that this blog has existed. Some of the articles that stick out for me include:

We’re always looking to engage more people in discussing the Seattle real estate market, so feel free to get engaged if you see a topic that strikes you!

(And if you’ve been looking for a good use for the webcam that’s sitting next to (on?) your computer, consider playing with a new feature to RCG: video comments!)