We at Rain City Guide have had the pleasure and honor to host this week’s Carnival of Real Estate.  I can’t help but remember someone saying that Greg Swann is disappointed when there is not one, single and clear WINNER of the CoRE.  Well Greg, we do not disappoint you this week.

Diane Tuman’s post on John McCain’s Houses was by far the clear cut winner, with no close second.

Congratulations Diane and Zillow Blog!  Dustin, Rhonda, Jillayne and I didn’t even have to have a meeting to discuss who the winner was to be, as each and every one of us chose the same post.  The vote was UNANIMOUS!

To the other 32 entrants I would like to point out that RCG as Judge is a tough crowd to please.  Many of the blog posts submitted were quite fine enough for a post on your blog, and yet not stellar in the sense of entering the post into a nationally recognized Carnival event.  So “good blog post for whom?” is the question of the day.

1)  If it was only of interest to people who live in your area, then it likely didn’t make the cut.
2) If it didn’t fulfill the concept of blogging from our perspective, that being to enlighten and educate someone on a topic of wide interest, then it likely didn’t make the cut.

3) If the topic was of broad interest, and the attempt to educate and enlighten fell short but made it at least part way there…then you are included in the following list of Honorable Mention.

Honorable Mention:

Dan Green on What is a Conforming Mortgage? Dan, using your own words “but that’s jibberish” I would suggest you take your post out on the street to be read by some Average Joe, and ask them if it is still “jibberish” to them.  Seems to me the answer is still a bit too insider for Average Joe to make good use of the answer.  Some numbers are missing.  The ones that a buyer needs to know before going out to look at property and insure the conforming loan option is at the end of his journey.  Great Topic!

Dan Melson of Searchlight Crusade on Rent to Own and Lease with Option to Buy Dan, this is also a Great Topic and the information provided is stellar.  Presentation could use a little work with so much crammed into one post.  Maybe some bullet points or graphics.  I was in the process of writing a post for one of our readers on this very topic when your entry came in, and held off because of this entry.   In this market, more posts on this topic will be of great importance to the masses of people who don’t qualify as a result of the mortgage loan criteria changes.  Kudos!

Matt Meyer on So You Want to be a Landlord? “More than any other time in life, NOW is not the time to play “trust me.” Never take the stated rents as fact…” Clearly one of the highlights of being the Host of this week’s Carnival of Real Estate was meeting Matt Meyer.  SugarHouseHomes is definitely going into my bookmarks.  I Love, Love, LOVE…this guy!  Do yourself a favor and go meet Matt.

Gerhard Ade on Seattle Area Sellers In Denial? To give you an idea of how tough the Judges were this week, this made the cut because one Judge said “this one is OK”.  Many were disposed of in short order with a bunch of “too short”, “too long”, “no links”, “did nothing for me”.  If we learned nothing else this week, we learned that RCG is a tough crowd to please, which makes this list of Honorable Mention that much more Honorable for those who made the cut.  The best part of this post is following the price from initial list price, to price at time of offer, to final recorded price. That is the kind of transparency that readers crave.  A bit agent-centric in parts…but overall a good topic with some good detail.

Kevin Tomlinson of South Beach Condos Blog is one of the lucky ones who can get a way with a post about local statistics being somewhat of national interest, because his niche market has lots of eye candy and Real Estate Porn.  But he blew it with this line: “I’m not going to do an analysis of $ psf because…”  Stats without commentary and an analysis by the poster…is just a bunch of numbers.  Advice? – get Brad to line up those columns.

TwoWiseAcres on Flipping Houses for Profit – A Case Study left us with more questions than answers.  But at least we stuck around long enough to have questions.  Since it is an ongoing case study, the answers will unfold over time.  Interesting Topic with some meaty content.  We highly recommend your tuning in to see the rest of this story, as it unfolds over time.

We liked the comments on Michael Bergin’s Post better than we liked the post itself.  My favorite line in the final comment (as of today) is “…IF does not sell a house.  Good value…does.”

Ro Troia’s post on House Swapping left is with more questions than answers, but did get everyone’s attention.  Ro, if you could provide a link to the Wall Street Journal article you referenced, perhaps that article contains some of the answers to our questions.  In addition to adding it to the post, if you could also put that link into the comments here or email it to me, I’d much appreciate it.  Any post that makes us want more is surely worthy of an Honorable Mention.

All those worth mentioning, are also worth reading, IONSHO.