Back in July I wrote this post about my favorite real estate blog(s) not written by people inside the real estate industry.
Manhattan Beach Confidential is written by an anonymous author whom I know as MB Watcher. He was featured in an article written by The Easy Reader and is under a lot of pressure to come out of the closet.
My advice to him was Don’t Do It!!! Stay anonymous. They are just looking for whom to crucify. They’ve got the cross and nails hidden behind their backs. They’ve got the noose all ready over in The Tree Section. They want to know who you are so they can find the chink in your armor. Telling them who you are would be revealing your Achilles’ Heal…we all have one.
I hope to be meeting him in person in the next month or so, and he has agreed to do that without wearing a bag over his head 🙂 Though I have suggested that he do wear a bag over his head and do not want to know his real name. It may be against the code of ethics for me not to tell the Realtors who he is, if I know his name.
What do you think? Should MB Watcher come out of the closet? Is the info he provides less valuable if you don’t know who he is? I don’t think agents are allowed to be anonymous for many reasons. But just a guy writing about real estate? Can he stay a well informed unknown?
I’m with you on this one. The guy should stay anonymous for all the reasons you’ve listed but also because it makes him a lot cooler . Allow me to you use super heros as an example: Batman, Superman, Spider Man, they all played off a vailed identety that allowed them save stuff/women, and keep personal lives (relatively) normal. GO MB WATCHER!
Raj,
Good idea. I’ll ask him to wear tights and a cape when we meet 🙂
Great, now people are going to be following Ardell around looking for a guy in tights with a bag over his head. That’s not going to help me stay anonymous!
🙁 No cape?
OK… on a COMPLETELY tangential note… I got my start in computers doing paste-up of Real Estate ads for the Manhattan Beach Reporter back in the 1980’s. I remember all the insanely tacky ads that would come out around holidays too!
Which is one way of saying… I GOT the joke about the Tree Section.
🙂
Frank