Tag Archives: blogging

“Where are da blogs?”

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Richard Nacht of Real Blogging asks “Where are da blogs?” in his discussion regarding internet lead generation.

I thank him for the segway to a post I was preparing to write today.

Back in February I wrote three posts: Bottom Feeder Sites, Using the Internet to Buy Your New Home and Redfin-Something to Thing About. Since January, when I began “writing for” Rain City Guide, I have been running an experiment based primarily on these three posts.

A) Bottom Feeder Sites – My contention was/is that if an agent didn’t pay for leads to a Bottom Feeder Site, there would be more monies at play into the transaction for the benefit of the consumer. I am pleased to report that at present, the consumer direct benefit, so far, is running at 3.43 times what I would have paid to House Values during that same period of time. That is with only 4 closed transactions of participants in the experiment. Clearly the consumer is winning as of this date.

Bottom Feeder Sites $0 – Consumer $3.43 X total 5 mo. cost of HouseValues (plus $29,500 in direct seller to buyer concessions.)

B) Using the Internet to Buy Your New Home – In a stellar example, see As Good As It Gets post, the consumer hit a trifecta!

1. Using the “STI method” noted in that post, I found the house within hours, using the STI as the bogey and going one stroke over par.

2. Using the “peek over the price” method noted in that post, I found a house he had missed using the internet as a home search tool, and he saved $25,000 at the same time, at least $10,000 of which was money “the seller left on the table”. Clearly a rarity in this market.

3. He also participated in the $3.43 x the 5 month cost of HouseValues benefits noted in A) above, his single cash to close benefits exceeding the entire cost of 5 months of House Values alone.

C) Redfin-Something to Think About – for me this was the most exciting of all, in that it accomplished something I have been working on since 1998. A meeting with a buyer that replicates meetings agents have been having with sellers since the beginning of time. This one is hard to explain, since it is still “playing out”. The meeting I had yesterday with a buyer consumer, was as close to being the same as “a listing appointment” as I have ever had. Buyers and Sellers having equal footing in the marketplace, has been my “Crusade” for so long, I can barely contain my elation!

So to Inman, and our nomination for “Most Innovative Blog”, I would like to point out my contribution to the Innovation of Rain City Guide. That is to utilize the zero cost (in dollars) component of blogging, to directly benefit the consumer and promote TRUE buyer empowerment as opposed to PERCEIVED buyer empowerment.

Clearly breakthrough stuff going on here at Rain City Guide…the experiment continues.

There’s a Person Behind that Blog

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Robert Scoble (the excellent Microsoft blogger) has been writing about the pain of watching his mother die.

One of the things that shocked him was that even while he’s describing these events, people are still sending him PR pitches for new products. He follows up these comments by saying he doesn’t mind receiving product pitches, however, the people need to read his blog and be current on his situation if they expect a response.

He’s making some interesting points that are very relevant to real estate blogging… Always remember that there are people behind the blogs. Real estate is such a “people” business, and yet, when people get on the internet they sometimes act like they are only dealing with computers.

Before you pitch a product, website or service (either via comments or email) remember that it is not a computer reading your pitch but a human being. Write something that demonstrates you’re interested in the person’s writing.

Personally, I receive so many emails now that I couldn’t possibly respond to them all and still handle a full-time job. However, getting me (and just about every blogger I know) to respond is quite easy… Write something that shows your interested in their thoughts or opinions!

Idea for Rain City Guide…

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Maybe one of the highlights of being a blogger is that I get emails from people from all over the country (world!). The most common emails are from people who want me to let me (1) know about an interesting news item, (2) review a product or (3) add their site to my blogroll (hint: you can add yourself!).

Here are some of the conversations I had this week that I thought might interest RCG readers:

  • Magnus Svantegård asked me if I was going to the Realcomm conference in Houston this June. I’d never even heard of this conference, but I’m interested in learning more. After a few minutes on their website, it seems that this group is pretty focused on the commercial side of real estate. Have any readers been to this event in the past? (I added it to the real estate technology calendar 😉 )
  • Stephane Grenier (of the wonderful Follow Steph blog) offered up a free copy of LandlordMax to any Rain City Guide contributor who would write a review of the software. I definitely not the right person to write a review of a Property Management software package, but if a contributor is interested in testing this software out, let me know.
  • Max Chirkov let me know about one Google Trends (he wrote about it here). Steve Rubel appears to be having a lot of fun with this tool…
  • Joel Burslem wrote to let me know that he recently started a blog on real estate marketing. This is definitely a blog worth adding to your feed reader and assuming that he keep writing such interesting posts, it will definitely attain “must read” status.

UPDATE:

I can be bribed!!! If any investors out there are interested in purchasing apartment buildings in Southern California, check out Havan’s latest offering and let him know that Dustin send you! 🙂

Teaching Effective Blogging to Realtors?

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One of the great things about real estate blogging is that we’re all making this up as we go along… What is the “right” way to blog? I really have no idea but I like to think that the contributors on Rain City Guide are on the right track…

Recognizing that we might be onto something, Russ Cofano approached me a few months ago with the idea of creating a “Bloginar” where we would travel the country teaching real estate professionals how to blog (This is before I accepted a position at Move). With his experience giving seminars to real estate professionals and our combined experience with blogging, the timing seemed right and we quickly put together an outline for our idea. Russ ran this outline past some of his contacts in the industry and the results is that we quickly signed up a few organizations to host our seminars. Our first similar was today in Portland, and for those interested, here is a high-level outline of our presentation:

Understanding Blogs

  • History
  • Anatomy
  • Motivations

Basics of Blogging

  • Creating a Blog
  • Posting Content
  • Creating Links
  • Writing Comments

Increasing Your Business With Blogging

  • Current Internet Real Estate Tools Suck
  • High Search Engine Ranking
  • High Conversion Rates
  • Long-Term Benefits
  • Low Monetary Costs

Effective Blogging Techniques

  • Linkation
  • Content
  • Complementary Tools

It is a full three-hour presentation so you can imagine that we go into a lot of detail on each of these topics!

There are a couple of things that I know are missing from our presentation… I’d really like to spent more time on how to host a blog as well as how to incorporate photos/podcasts/videos into blogs. With that said, we only had three hours so we tried to hit the “sweat-spot” of giving enough information to new bloggers without overloading them on some of the more advanced stuff. My hope is that each and every person that walks out of our seminars feels equipped (and excited!) enough to start an effective real estate blog that evening.

If you’re interested in scheduling this seminar for your organization, please contact Russ (His blog is Realty Objectives [link removed] and his site includes some more information on our seminars [link removed]). You’ll definitely want to sign up soon because with my full-time job at Move, I can only commit to a handful of presentations each month (and we’re already booked-up through July!).

Also, if you are one of the people who attended the seminar, please consider leaving a comment below with your take on our presentation (along with a link to your new blog! 😉 )

Relevance is at the Long End of the Tail

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Listen to enough conversations on the internet and you’re bound to run into the concept of the long tail. It is a fascinating concept that helps define how people use the internet and helps clarify how real estate professionals can be successful on the internet.

The long tail is a concept that was first popularized by Chris Anderson as an article in Wired back in October of 2004 and grew into a popular blog devoted to the subject. The essence of the Long Tail is defined by the following chart:

long-tail-graph

In this chart, the red areas represent the most commonly sought after (and served) markets… I think of them as the “best sellers”. The yellow area represents the niche markets that only appeal to a small subset of people, and due to (the lack of) economies of scale, these markets tend to be under-served in most industries.

The concept of the long tail is that successful on-line business have (with very few exceptions) thrived by providing adequate services to the people under the yellow area of the curve. Sure you can go to Amazon to find the latest best sellers (red area), but you can also go to Amazon to find hundreds of thousands of titles that you won’t find at your local bookshop (yellow area). Same thing with eBay. The internet is best situated to serve otherwise “hard-to-serve” people.

But economies of scale don’t explain everything. The real beauty of the long tail is that it is often much easier to provide exceptional service to customers in the yellow area of the curve. If someone is searching for a generic topic on Amazon like [popular fiction], it is really hard to know if they would be happy with the results. But if they were to search [accident analysis training manual], you can be pretty sure that they will be happy with the results because there are only a few books dealing with this subject and Amazon will show them all!

The Long Tail and Real Estate

Recently, Chris over at RealtyBlogging asked “How are real estate and blogging alike?”, and this is my answer. Both real estate and blogging thrive when they effectively serve a local and/or niche market (i.e. the yellow area under the curve).

The idea behind this should really be second nature to successful real estate agents who know they couldn’t possibly serve all the niches within a major City. Rather, my experience has been that successful agents will say that they began by providing exceptional service to a small subset of people. Maybe their niche involves houseboats or condos, or a specific neighborhood… The specific niche doesn’t matter. The important aspect is that a real estate agent realized that they were never going to be able to serve everyone well, so instead they focused on a small subset of people and learned that market inside-and-out.

Similarly, blogs almost always come with a strong point of view and serve a niche market well.

In addition, the internet has allowed a few companies to do a very similar thing that real estate professionals have always been doing. Namely be extremely relevant to a small subset of the overall population. Not only has Amazon and eBay found success this way, but Google has created a billion dollar industry out of this concept. The idea behind Google Ads is that they provide relevant ads to users on obscure topics. I doubt many lawyers would consider putting up a banner ad on Yahoo to attract people looking for mesothelioma lawyers, but give these lawyers a chance to reach people who just searched for [mesothelioma lawyers] on Google, and they are willing to pay $54.33 for one click!!!

This extremely relevance is exactly how the real estate agents of the future will be successful on the internet. Not only that, but I happen to think that blogging is a great way for agents to get out from under the “red” of the curve (where most real estate websites live… and die) and out into the long tail where their niche knowledge will be appreciated and rewarded!

Clooneygate and Real Estate Blogs

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I just read a fascinating story in the the NY Times (subscription required) about a “post” by George Clooney on a liberal Blog, The Huffington Post.  Seems that the Blogger, Ms. Huffington, cobbled together some responses that Clooney had made in news interviews and created the post.  She then ran the content by Mr. Clooney’s PR folks for approval and was given the right to publish the post (as written by her) but attributed to George.  When it was discovered that George did not really pen the message, all hell broke loose in the Blogosphere.   According to the story, even confirmed loyalists to The Huffington Post were upset.   Seems that the medium carries a significant representation of authenticity to it and despite the content of the message, the authenticity that the thoughts were the writer’s thoughts carries more weight. 

So, you ask, what do we learn from Clooneygate as it relates to real estate bloggers?  Be real.  People reading your Blog are interested in the context of your thoughts as they relate to information.  It is not the information so much as what you think about the information.  Your spin.  Your opinion.  

All too much, real estate brokers and agents all want to look and act the same.  Differentiation has, many times, been frowned upon.  Just look at most agent web sites.  Take the name and picture off and most of them look the same.   Blogging is different because of the medium.  Resist the urge to do things like everyone else, especially if it means copying information written by others.  That is not interesting.  You are! 

Russ     

Interview with Jonathan Miller of Matrix

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[photopress:jonathanm.jpg,thumb,alignright]Jonathan Miller is definitely one of the hottest real estate bloggers around. With a constant flow of interesting insights, Matrix has quickly gained a national following. For me, he personifies the image of a blogger who is able to demonstrate their expertise through blogging.

What inspired you to start blogging?

Actually, it was podcasting. I got excited about podcasting last year and toyed with the idea of starting my own weekly podcast. Early podcasts like Slacker Astronomy, Evil Genius Chronicles and Rock and Roll Geek Show (before commercial media entered the arena) showed me that given enough passion toward your craft, the average person can develop a following without a whole lot of funding. That’s democracy in action. I still listen to various podcasts everyday and very little radio. With a wife and 4 kids and a business, the whole idea of time slicing is very appealing to me. However, when I sat down to actually do it, I realized this would not be a practical venue to deliver information to my clients and the public on a regular basis. I wanted a more spontaneous medium and I love to write. All the while I had been reading a few blogs up until that point, but I hadn’t considered doing my own blog. At the point I realized that running a blog was the way to go. In fact, I run two. Matrix which covers the national real estate economy and Soapbox which covers the real estate appraisal industry. On Soapbox, I have two appraisers who contribute some posts every week (not unlike RCG).

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

Lately its been real estate jargon – the communication of real estate information. For such a big investment, communication is not really standardized and its pretty low-brow. Basic terminology, broker speak, media characterizations of the market, etc. Its all fair game. Prior to that, I was all jacked up about the stats that we rely on from NAR, OFHEO and the Commerce Dept.

What have you done to personalize your blog?

Well, for one thing, I insert my own personal experiences as they relate to the post to let the reader know the level of my familiarity with the topic. I took the photo on the masthead of the post and I try to use my own photos as much as possible. Myself and my firm collect photos of New York and put some of them in our photo gallery on our company web site. One other thing that I enjoy and helps personalize Matrix is the title of each post. To be contrarian, I make them long and show contrast with a little sarcasm. Its the highlight of each post for me and the last step.

Do you have any favorite posts?

Definitely. My favorite post was done as a result of the release of my 3rd quarter market report which was covered in the front page of the NY Times. That story was largely credited with signifying the change in the market from frenzy to stable (so I am told). I was so inundated with calls for several days from government agencies, Wall Street investment banks, lenders, appraisers, real estate brokerage owners that I wrote this post so I didn’t have to say the same things over and over. The surge in traffic was an amazing. Manhattan After The Hoopla Over A 12.7% Drop: What Really Happened In 3Q 05? A number of brokerage firms printed the post out and distributed it to their brokers to help them answer questions about the market and Big media linked to it. Very gratifying.

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

There are simply too many real estate blogs to name all of them here. I check in with about 100 blogs every morning using bloglines.com. Of course, RCG has become a daily read. Curbed gets special mention because they have been very supportive from the very beginning and opened my eyes as to how creative you can be in the delivery of real estate information. I write a weekly post for them called Three Cents Worth which has been a lot of fun. For New York stuff, I like the Gothamist for general NY activities, The Real Deal for NY Real Estate News and Property Grunt for his insight. For bubble sites, I like Housing Panic, Housing Bubble and Northern NJ Housing Bubble. For Big Media, I enjoy The Walk-Through (NYT) and Businessweek’s Hot Properties. For financial/business/markets I like Big Picture (amazing volume of content), The Stalwart (very sharp insight), Daniel Gross’ moneyblog (always great content), underthecounter (for perspectives on the financial markets), Calculated Risk (the best charts on the internet). For humor I like: Dave Barry (The king of short but hysterical posts) and the Dilbert Blog (amazing volume of content and insight). For marketing I like Seth Godin’s blog and Guy Kawasaki’s – full of common sense insights.

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

Nothing in particular. My developer took care of setting the sites up in WordPress and I requested certain tweaks to the features.

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

It fits very well as far as indirect marketing goes. It extends the reach of my expertise which then benefits both my residential and commercial valuation forms. But honestly, that is a fringe benefit. I just like the idea of being able to share my ideas on a topic I never grow tired of.

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

On the technology side, I plan to upgrade to the new version of WordPress which will add more admin controls. On the user side, probably more user interaction, but I am not sure yet. I suspect most changes will come on impulse rather than some type of strategic plan – that’s the fun of it. Its really all about the content though – fresh insight rather than regurgitating what’s already out there..

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

I’ll know it when I see it. I think I am set for now.

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

I imagine there will be a crash and burn of a large number of sites as their owners lose interest or market conditions change. They will be replaced by a slew of new sites. I can see how many webmasters make it their life’s work for a short period of time and then lose interest. For example, whether or not there is a housing bubble that bursts, I can’t see bubble blogs leading the way 3-4 years from now. It will be old news. New real estate topics or causes will take their place. Thats the beauty of blogging. There is virtually no startup costs other than time, so the response to various issues can be immediate.

Interview with Jim Duncan of Central Virginia Real Estate

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[photopress:jd02a.jpg,thumb,alignright]There are not too many real estate professionals that understand blogging as well as Jim Duncan of the Central Virginia Real Estate blog. He obviously “gets it” in that his blogging style is top-notch at fascilitating discussions (i.e. great use of quoted text and links). I happen to think he strikes a great balance between exploring new ideas and technologies, while still demonstrating his expertise in real estate.

What inspired you to start blogging?

I started blogging because I read an article a few years ago that said that blogging was going to be the “next big thing.

Interview with Noah Rosenblatt of UrbanDigs

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Back in December I ran a series of interviews with the real estate bloggers who most inspired me. Seeing as how I missed a few great bloggers that round, I thought I would revisit this topic and interview a few more great real estate bloggers! As with the previous interviews, I’ll keep my own opinions out and let the bloggers speak for themselves! Keep coming back for a post each day this week featuring an interview with a great real estate blogger!

[photopress:noah.jpg,full,alignright]In less than a year of covering NY real estate, Noah Rosenblatt has turned his blog, UrbanDigs, into a must read for quality real estate content as he tends to leave out the fluff and focus on in depth analysis and advice while still providing plenty of color on his site. Even though his focus is on New York, there’s enough meat in each of his posts that even us west coasters are likely to see a jump in our IQ after a visit to UrbanDigs.

What inspired you to start blogging?

To educate New Yorkers on the most important aspects of profiting from NYC real estate. It’s really targeted to buyers/sellers of this very different market.

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

Yes. I love covering Interest Rate’s and some of the macro signs that the fed looks at when deciding where to go with monetary policy. It’s such an important aspect of the real estate industry, especially in this city where premium existing apartments are selling for over $1,000/ sq. ft..

What have you done to personalize your blog?

I really gave it a facelift to make it visually appeasing to my readers. I also added a Live Chat session every MON – FRI from 10:00 – 12:00PM for anyone to stop by and ask their questions; first time buyers seem to love it.

Do you have any favorite posts?

Sure do. I love my post on Maintenance Charges: The Hidden Devil.

I like the little formula that is at the end of the post that every buyer should look at and calculate the #’s for a property they may be. It allows them to see how the total monthlies should affect the asking price as they review comps and currently active listings in the same building.

I also like my posts on A Buyer Broker and How To Find Good Value In A Sellers Market.

The latter talks about what to pay for and what NOT to pay for when the inventory is tight! Good advice to use in general when looking to buy a new apartment in NYC.

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

Besides RCG? I love:

Last one is not a blog but a must in my mind.

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

I like Movable Type software and would recommend them to any future blogger. Its very easy to use and pretty advanced. I like Feedburner for feeds, and Technorati for exposure. Also submit to Yahoo Directory and all the major blog search engines; too many to name.

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

I devote about 3-4 hours a day to blogging; which includes the 2 hour chat session. Its difficult sometimes to do really in depth analysis and post on it, but overall, I expect my time devoted to UrbanDigs to compliment my residential sales business model that I am building for myself in NYC. Buyers/Sellers here love honesty and passion. UrbanDigs is an expression of me to that respect and my clients love it. I do NOT market my exclusives on UrbanDigs though.

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

I have plans to introduce a number of virtual calculators with my own formulas (I love math!) that I think will be very useful for buyers/sellers of NYC real estate. They will each have its own focused application; such as a RENT vs. BUY calculator that is far better than bankrate.com’s or any other one I’ve used. These tools are vital for this fast paced market and should be very helpful. A few should be live by the end of March.

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

I would say Virtual Calculators. Since we don’t have them yet, I wish I had them now! I’m not really interested in putting any sales system into the site as I don’t think that is the point of UrbanDigs.

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

I think it will be a integral part of buying a home; not so much selling a home. I think there are tons of people out there that use the internet to educate themselves about everything. Real Estate is no different. I think real estate blogging will grow, more brokers will launch sites, topics will be expanded, and that only a few will really make it to their pre-determined goals. On the flip side, the general public will be rewarded with a virtual encyclopedia on many cities real estate markets that offer street level information. Thats pretty useful.