Monthly Archives: December 2005

Interview with Fraser Beach of Toronto at Home

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fraser beachFraser Beach’s Toronto at Home blog has been another major inspiration for Rain City Guide. The unique and clean layout of his blog personifies professionalism and his content is always interesting and well written. Unlike most of us, I’m under the impression that Fraser doesn’t have bad blogging days!

When not covering real estate issues, locally-based news and general real estate advice for home buyers and sellers, Fraser runs a successful full-service discount brokerage in Toronto.

What inspired you to start blogging?

I guess you could say that playing on the internet became my hobby in ’95. I was an early member of MetaFilter, the grandfather of weblogs, and when Blogger made it easy, I started my own blog.

Are there any special topics or issues that you enjoy covering?

I try to constantly answer the question “hows the market?”, because that’s what most people want to know.

What have you done to personalize your blog?

The blog it fully integrated with my website — so I guess it’s just me. I like the “minimalist” style of web design.

Do you have any favorite posts?

Hopefully, my current one.

What are some of your favorite blogs (real estate or otherwise)?

Grow-a-brain, Curbed, and of course Rain City Guide :-). My favourite (Canadians spell funny) site, bar-none, is coudal.com.

What tools/websites do you find most helpful in putting together your blog?

TypePad (typepad.com) does it all. It can be totally customized and I really like playing with HTML and CSS.

How does blogging fit into the overall marketing of your business?

The website and blog + MLS, is our total marketing and communications effort — and I constantly have to decline business.

What plans do you have to improve your blog over this next year?

I just redesigned it last weekend, and will again when a new design concept strikes. Like Lexus – the constant pursuit of perfection 🙂

What is the one tool or feature that you wish your site had?

Thinking about podcasting.

What do you think real estate blogging will look like 3 years from now?

Probably there will be a lot of ghost-written, cookie-cutter services like there are now for websites.

(Read more interviews with some of real estate’s top bloggers under the Real Estate Q&A category)

Interview with John Mudd of Inside Real Estate

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[photopress:inside_real_estate_screenshot.jpg,thumb,alignright]If you follow real estate issues on the web, then you’ve likely come across John Mudd. There is no one in real estate blogging that is quite like John. He’s a master at marketing giving him a nearly ubiqudous presence in real estate circles on the web!

My introduction to John was when I noticed this February 2005 press release where he was drumming up support for a blogging award. Not surprisingly, he went on to win the 2005 Business Blog Award for the best Real Estate blogger and I quickly learned that he was definitely a real estate blogger on top of his game. In addition to his highly successful blog, InsideRealEstateJournal.blogspot.com, he’s a regular contributor on the Inman blog and he runs a very successful real estate company in the St. Petersburg, Florida area where he sells luxury homes, waterfront homes and condos.

What inspired you to start blogging?

Adnan Arif. He and I went to the same college. I was in the student senate when I met him. He ran an unsuccessful campaign for student body president. What was born from that was a very nice student-run Web-magazine called MAXED. I wrote columns for it. Adnan published it. After college I wandered around for a little while, then settled into a public relations/publicity career. Then I went into real estate at my dad’s advice because it was a “money business.” Adnan sold me on my creating a real estate blog. I created one and have been getting sales from it ever since. He and I also created Hundred Acres ( www.hundredacres.com), which crashed when our host stopped service without telling us. He also has Wrist Fashion (www.wristfashion.com) and some other blogs (he should have them linked to on Wrist Fashion) that make for interesting reading from time to time.

Are there any special topics or issues that you enjoy covering?

I use my blog to generate leads that I convert into sales, so I usually like topics that inspire phone calls or direct contact using my Contact John form. I get a lot of those. Usually featured listings and recent solds get great responses, as do market reports and location reports ( i.e., downtown St. Petersburg).

What have you done to personalize your blog?

My name is on it. It’s everywhere on it. There are also news releases and plenty of news articles and blog posts about me on it. It’s my best self-promotion tool. I’m a big Web marketer.

Do you have any favorite posts?

I like the one about downtown St. Petersburg’s condo future a lot. I get a lot of calls on it.

What are some of your favorite blogs (real estate or otherwise)?

Curbed (New York version; if they get a Tampa version up and running I hope they’ll let me contribute). Inman News Blog. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Blog Herald. Gawker. Blogcritics. Luxist. The Diabetes Blog. Wonkette. I enjoy Steve Rubel’s blog and Jeremy Wright’s blog ( www.ensight.org) from time to time. Any blog that links to my blog or website. These are all on my blogroll or elsewhere on my blog.

What tools/websites do you find most helpful in putting together your blog?

Blogger. I’m a self-starter. I now have one Google AdSense ad on my blog, because they let me used targeted ads. That way real estate ads don’t appear there. I use Blogrolling for links, but I don’t really need to, I just did it that way since Blogrolling came out (it used to be hip to blogroll links, until Tucows bought them). I prefer hardcoding everything in. It’s not hard to do.

How does blogging fit into the overall marketing of your business?

It is my business. My blog and my website are my business. I use mailings and ads to help brand my website. The blog drives traffic to both and helps with PageRank. All of my business comes from the Web, I would say. On a rare occasion it may come from a mailing or a sign call or meeting someone in person, but 98 percent of it comes from people I “meet” online first via e-mail or phone conversation as a result of what they read on my website or blog. I have a buyers list of around 5,000 buyers because of leads generated from my blog and website combined. I don’t know of any other Realtor or broker in the industry able to do that in two to three years on a $0 budget.

What plans do you have to improve your blog over this next year?

No plans, really. Same blogging strategy as always – post about interesting stuff that is worth posting about, get lots of leads. He/She who has the most contact information wins in a down market.

What is the one tool or feature that you wish your site had?

No wishes here, really. I would love it if I had artificial intelligence robot assistants to hep me with all this stuff, and it would be nice if I had a robot follow-up assistant. I have tried outsourcing it and no one has my technique for conversion, so it’s a waste of money and time. I convert the leads into sales, but I haven’t seen anyone else be able to. I figure I could program robots to have my style and tone. Never try to sell a prospect you get online or you will lose them.

What do you think real estate blogging will look like 3 years from now?

Not much different, but we may see more transaction management systems integrated into websites. I wish we had seen those integrated into websites a year ago. Imagine, having your customers able to login on your website to view all of their transaction documents. That definitely adds value to your services. I think we’ll see more Google map integration, although that will depend on broker flexibility. Some IDX rules are far too static or too firm to allow for that, and some blogging software won’t allow for it, either. I see more real estate bloggers reviewing real estate products. I’m getting review requests by the ton as I write this. Realtor-bloggers are opinion leaders in their industry. When they talk people in the industry listen. Not everyone in the industry is comfortable with that, yet.

(Read more interviews with some of real estate’s top bloggers under the Real Estate Q&A category)

Interview with Fran of The Real Estate Blog

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[photopress:Fran_photo2_Ed_Carreon.jpg,thumb,alignright]It is very appropriate that the first person who agreed to an interview was Fran of The Real Estate Blog. As I described in this post, The Real Estate Blog has been a major influence in the development Rain City Guide.

As a real estate agent, Fran will forever be linked with her teammate, Rowena. (I even find it hard to say “Fran” without saying “and Rowena”). They are one of the most successful real estate teams in Southern California, host a radio show , create some great caricatures, and write for one of the longest running real estate blog…

What inspired you to start blogging?

We started blogging (actually, it’s I … the Fran half … I do all the blogging) because it was the “new” thing on the internet back in 2003. I thought I’d give it a try!

Are there any special topics or issues that you enjoy covering?

Personally, I enjoy bringing back real estate-related stories from my travels. Real estate is a very popular topic anywhere you go.

What have you done to personalize your blog?

I’m not sure about this question. I know some people take their blog in a personal direction … that is, their blog is a reflection of their real estate business in that they use the blog to promote their business (perhaps put their listings on the blog, or post the latest information about themselves) but that’s not the focus of our blog. I’ve intentionally channeled our blog to be informational in a general sense, with what I hope is real estate-related snippets of info, usually with links to the bigger-picture online article.

If people want to learn more about US, there is a link from our blog to a short bio page.

Do you have any favorite posts?

One from my travels to North Carolina (July 13, 2005). . I thought that was interesting.

What are some of your favorite blogs (real estate or otherwise)?

Actually, I don’t read blogs. I do not read other real estate blogs because I don’t want them to influence what I post on my blog.

What tools/websites do you find most helpful in putting together your blog?

I watch for online information about real estate, either through the MSN homepage, or from the California Association of Realtors (CAR) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Also, trade magazines, again from CAR and NAR. Plus, knowing that I have to blog (posting every-other-day), I keep my eyes and ears open for interesting information in the course of doing business.

How does blogging fit into the overall marketing of your business?

We do not use the blog to market our business. It’s a separate venture. Our main website, www.franandrowena.com, is about our real estate business. Our blog is about real estate information in a general sense. Through www.franandrowena.com, however, there is a link to our blog. Hopefully people will be curious enough to visit our blog from there. Truly, it’s my opinion that the general public does not know what a blog is.

As far as marketing our business, I believe the “link” to our business is in terms of credibility. People who find our blog realize we are active, working realtors who try to keep on top of the latest information and share that information.

What plans do you have to improve your blog over this next year?

Good question! I’d like to bring a more personal touch to our blog, rather than just quote/reference information from other sources. More personal entries, insights and my opinions, for example.

What is the one tool or feature that you wish your site had?

I’ve got to figure out that trackback feature (a direct link to each entry).

What do you think real estate blogging will look like 3 years from now?

Probably old news … people will be on to podcasting, or something new technology.

Update:Read more interviews with some of real estate’s top bloggers under the Real Estate Q&A category

The State of Real Estate… blogging

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[photopress:coastal_tree.jpg,thumb,alignright]Inspired by Robert Scoble (and as part of my ongoing series on real estate blogging advice) I thought it would be a fun to interview some of my favorite real estate bloggers.

Along these lines, I emailed 10 questions to the dozen real estate bloggers who have most inspired me. I’ve already received some wonderful responses, so this endeavor should be a lot of fun. My plan is to release a new response each day, so keep coming back for some more Q&A fun!

The purpose of these questions is to better learn from the experience and get a vision of the future from each of these innovative bloggers. With real estate blogging (and business blogging) developing so quickly, I think this set of interviews will offer an interesting time-capsule into a genre that is sure to see new players and major changes in the near future.

Each of the interviews will be posted under the Real Estate Q&A category!

Time Makes Good Samaritans Persons of the Year

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[photopress:bono_bill_melinda_time_cover.jpg,thumb,alignright]I know this story has nothing (or at least very little) to do with real estate, but it was great to see Bono, Bill and Melinda get Time’s Persons of the Year.

Earlier this year, I had a chance to sit (and dance!) next to Bill and Melinda at a U2 concert (They were amazingly awesome seats!). So, despite the fact that I’ve never had a conversation with any of these people, I feel a strange connection and I think it is great to see them get recognized for all the great work they have done to address world poverty.

Belltown to get community center

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[photopress:walking_along_the_waterfront.JPG,thumb,alignright]While it won’t make Belltown the most family-friendly area of Seattle, it is nice to know that this area is getting a new community center.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read the article was that the couple that run the UptownSeattle blog are leaving a little too soon… I can tell that they really like the area and it would have been a great sign for the neighborhood if they would have felt better about raising a kid in Belltown.

7 Tips for Marketing Your Real Estate Blog

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[photopress:poodle.jpg,thumb,alignright]As a real estate agent, Anna gets 100’s (maybe 1000’s) of letters and emails every week from companies that would love to do her marketing for her. However, we’ve never once used any of these services because I strongly (pigheadedly?) believe that if there is one thing a real estate agent should be good at, it is marketing.

Along those lines, Anna and I have done all of our own marketing. We’ve created all our fliers, CMAs, postcards, brochures, websites, logos, photos, etc.. This may have taken some more time than if we just paid someone to do the work for us, but as a consequence of our hard work we now know exactly what it takes to do something right. I like to think that the high quality of our work products reflects the tremendous amount we’ve learned!

With that said, I’m writing this post under the assumption that you are going to build and market your site yourself. You’ll never be a good blogger unless you know just how hard (or easy) it is to add a link, feature, or feed! You’ll never know just how hard (or easy!) it is to get a good google ranking unless you do the work yourself. (“Impossible!” you say… I say “It is definitely possible” and if you check back in a few days, I will supplement this post on marketing with a post on building a real estate blog using WordPress in this continuing series on blogging advice for real estate agents. Building a blog is not easy (or hard?), and I’ve been taking notes on a possible how-to build-a-blog post post ever since Andy requested it in this blowout, spectacular post.)

Without further ado, here are seven tips on marketing your real estate blog:

  1. Linkation, Linkation, Linkation
  2. Personalize your site! Just about every blogging software comes with templates that can be easily edited to personalize your site. Add some photos and some text about yourself. Sites that have not been personalized are boring to read! Great content is good, but it needs to be presented well to become great! Make things colorful. As much as I enjoy it, real estate is not the most exciting topic in the world, so make it colorful. Have fun!
  3. Leave Comments. Leave comments on other blogs. I happen to know that many people find out about my blog because I leave a comment on their site. I don’t want to give away too many tricks ;), but blogging has opened up tons of free ways to find and interact with people who might be interested in the real estate services that you provide.
  4. Use Trackbacks. When you write an article that links to another blog, most blogging software is set-up to “ping” the other site. Should the other blogger allow it, a link back to your site will appear in the “trackbacks” section under their article. It is a nifty feature, that can easily be abused. If you want site owners to let the trackbacks show up on their site, then make sure you’re adding something of value to the conversation!
  5. Personalize your content. Don’t waste (too much?) time on your blog displaying your listings. That stuff gets old quickly and most people reading your blog will quickly tune it out (if they even continue to read!). Instead write about your local market conditions, or local/national news, or real estate search, or whatever interests you… Or better yet, have fun and think up things like nominating yourself for an award that you are guaranteed to win! Most importantly, make sure that the content interests you, because if it doesn’t interest you, I can guarantee that it won’t interest your readers!
  6. Read other blogs. For marketing information, start with these three blogs: Real Estate Marketing Blog, Seth’s blog, & Matt Cutts. These guys all cover wildly different ground and before you know it you’ll be using the web marketing lingo like SEO and Viral Marketing. (Now that I’ve said these terms, I should probably explain them… SEO stands for search engine optimization and refers to the practice of improving your site so that search engines will locate, like and link to your site. Viral Marketing refers to the very subtle (and quite tricky) practice of creating buzz (and traffic!) to your site without using standard marketing tools.
  7. Love RSS. Why? Because people are lazy, so make is easy as possible to read your blog.

(L-P-L-U-P-R-L… hmmm… )

Want more tips on running a real estate business? II highly recommend Paul Hawken’s Growing A Business. His writing is extremely easy to read and he gives lots of memorable examples from his experience building up Smith and Hawken And best of all, he writes without including all the hype of a typical business-advice book. Just good solid ideas about how to differentiate your business by concentrating (and building upon) your strengths as oppose to spending time worrying about the competition!

On a related note, Anna asked me last night why I was giving so much advice to potential competition. I guess that goes to show that I still have not completely brought her around to my world view yet. In my world, I spend a lot of time thinking about creating interesting content and almost no time worrying about the competition. I’m of the opinion that real estate agents who spend their time worrying about other agents will be smacked up beside the head by some very tech savvy competition in the near future!

By the way, if you are an agent that would like to see me cover any additional topics, let me know. The two ideas that are still on my list are (1) how to build a real estate blog and (2) types of real estate posts…

Didn't Pay Your Mortgage? Don't Worry.

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[photopress:garden_wall.jpg,thumb,alignright]I always enjoy reading the perspective of Slate economist Daniel Gross… and when he covers real estate issues, it’s all the better.

In Didn’t Pay Your Mortgage? Don’t Worry, David explains how banks are more forgiving than ever…

With the passage of the consumer-unfriendly bankruptcy law and the cram-down rampant, the personal finances of those with limited means are getting more precarious. But even in this Scrooge-y world, there are pockets of sweetness and generosity. At least one group of kind-hearted folks in the finance industry is willing to give customers a break when things don’t go their way: America’s heart-of-gold mortgage lenders, who are behaving with curious benevolence toward suffering clients. Even as housing prices have risen and grown more unaffordable, and as bankruptcy filings have soared, foreclosure rates have fallen. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the foreclosure rate has fallen from 1.49 percent in the third quarter of 2002 to 1 percent in the second quarter of 2005.

He goes on to explain that ” foreclosure—on anyone—is an onerous, time-consuming process. (Read: It costs money.) It also forces banks to get into a business far from their core competency.” In addition, “getting aggressive on foreclosure can damage a lender’s reputation.”

“It used to be that only gigantic banks and corporations like Citigroup and Chrysler were regarded as too big to fail. Today, the humble homeowner enjoys that status as well.”

It is definitely worth noting that if you are having trouble paying your mortgage, talk with your lender. For all the reasons that David notes in this article, it is quite possible that you can work a deal out that will allow you to keep your home until your finances improve!

Linkation, Linkation, Linkation

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(I enjoyed writing my previous article on the reasons that real estate agents should blog, and it got me thinking about all the other bits of advice I’d like to share with real estate agents… I have a bunch of ideas, many of which are still only half-baked, so I’m looking toward your comments and suggestions to see where I should take this mini-series on blogging basics for real estate agents.)

What are the three most important factors in determining the value of real estate?

  1. Location
  2. Location
  3. Location

grow-a-brainWhile this well worn mantra forms a fundamental building block of real estate value, the concept of location is nearly irrelevant in the on-line world. I’m located in Seattle, WA, the servers hosting this site are in Santa Monica, CA, and you could be reading this from anywhere in the world.

If you’re an agent thinking of moving on-line, there are a bunch of real estate fundamentals that you’re going to want to relearn if you are going to be successful. I’ll start be revising the well-worn mantra to make it relevant on-line…

What are the three most important factors in determining the value of your real estate site?

  1. Links
  2. Links
  3. Links

And just as all locations are not created equal, not all links are created equal.

If you’re looking to build up a website that ranks well with search engines, then you’re number one focus should be on getting high quality inbound links (i.e. other sites linking to your site!). In particular, you want to build up as many inbound links from popular blogs and websites as you can. It’s common knowledge that 3 high-quality inbound links are more valuable than 1000 links from lame link farms… You want links into your site, but more importantly, you want quality links into your site!

Note that you do not get any search engine benefits from outbound links (links from your site to other sites). At best, outbound links won’t affect your ranking and at worst, they can seriously damage your ranking should you link to spam sites. In other words, if you’re linking to quality sites, you’re fine… If you’re linking to spam sites, you can expect the search engines to label you as spam.

Since there’s no benefit to outbound links, does this mean that you should not link to other sites?

No Way! Quite the contrary! Linking to other sites is critical to building up your site’s credibility with other bloggers. Join in some of the wonderful conversations that makes up the web and you’ll likely find that more and more people begin to link to your site. Find a blog you really like and then write articles about their articles! Link back to them and you’ll be surprised how quickly they start linking back to you! It’s actually a lot of fun to be part of this process.

There are very few sites that can build up credibility without linking to other sites and if you’re reading this blog looking for advice, you are probably not one of them. My advice to new bloggers: link… link… link… and link some more. Link to a blog saying something nice about their site, and there’s a pretty good chance they’ll link back to you!

So why are links so important

Links are the lifeblood of the web. The search engines rely heavily on links to determine how to rank your site. And more than any other factor, the rank of your site on search engines determines the value of your site. Granted, if you’re writing a blog for personal reasons, then you might not care how many people reach your site via search engines, but if you’re blogging to get clients, then you’re sites success depends on your how you are ranked by Google. Ranking high on Google searches generates web-traffic which generates leads which generate sales.

There are other ways to generate web-traffic, but none of them are as cheap and/or effective as generating leads through searches. (This site has a nice overview of how of how search engines work!)

So, all of this leads to an obvious question… How do you generate inbound links? Check back in a few days. I’ve got a bunch of ideas/thoughts on this subject. I’ll try to gather my thoughts and turn them into a post!

On a related note, I get asked by other bloggers on a regular basis if it is okay if they link to Rain City Guide. My answer is always “Yes”. I love links! Any business blogger who refused a link would be nuts.