Tag Archives: real-estate

Real Estate Blogs That Answer Questions

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[photopress:Blog_Cola.gif,thumb,alignright] Searching for answers to your Real Estate Questions? Here are a few tips to make finding answers a little easier and more productive.

Try to read blogs that are written by real estate professionals who are licensed in your State, or at least in an area with similar agency laws. Instead of Googling all night to find a blog what just happens to go into detail about the topic you want to know more about, find Real Estate Blogs That Answer Questions. Ask a direct question in the comments section of several blogs, and remember to bookmark them to go back and retrieve the answers.

Of course here at Rain City Guide, rarely does a question go unanswered. We are very attentive to comments and try to answer questions best we can. Unfortunately, Real Estate is one of the few professional arenas that does not permit getting second opinions. If your doctor wants to cut something off or out of you, you get to go get a second opinion from another doctor. But Realtors, by their Code of Ethics, are not permitted to give advices if you are the client of another Realtor. So if you ask a question like: “My agent told me this, but I want your opinion”, there’s a strong possibility that the Blogger will not be able to contradict the advices of your agent.

That being said, let’s find some Real Estate Blogs, besides Rain City Guide, that answer real estate questions. If you are in New York City, it is very difficult for you to get info from blogs that are not written by agents who operate there, because NYC is unto itself regarding the rules of play in real estate. Mainly because the contracts and closings are attorney based, they have no MLS system AND they don’t have Buyer Agency. So for New Yorkers, Best Real Estate Blog that answers questions is: Noah Rosenblatt’s Urban Digs (he even has a live chat feature). Curbed is a popular NYC site, but it looks like your questions will be answered by other readers, for the most part. Christine Forgione’s NYHouses4Sale doesn’t seem to get many questions, but I’m pretty sure she’d answer them if she did. So give her a try.

Where are the California Blogs that talk back? You’ve got Kris and Steve Berg down in San Diego. You’ve got Kevin Boer in the Bay Area You would think with a State as big as California, you would have a slew of good blogs. I see a few people blogging away, but they are just blogging at you like a flashing billboard. Luring the search engines and not allowing comments, or just plain old selling and not providing real info. Oh well. Maybe someone out there has some suggestions that will show up in the comments.

Of course Arizona is just crawling with blog talent. You’ve got BloodhoundBlog where you can pick who you want advices from, but if it’s Arizona real estate you want to talk about, I’d be asking Cathleen. Todd Tarson is so up front and out there, he’d probably tell you what color underwear he has on if you asked him. If I had real questions about real estate in Mohave County, Arizona I’d be talking to Todd on his blog.

Charles Turner’s doing a decent job over in Portland. When he gets a comment, he answers honestly and openly. Teresa Boardman’s blog in St. Paul Minnesota is good, but the comments seem to be a bunch of agents talking to agents, and not much from consumers. If you are buying or selling real estate in St. Paul, try asking off topic questions on any of Teresa’s posts. I’m sure you’d get a good answer. Here’s a great blog of bloggers talking to other bloggers. Who is Tom? What does Tom do? I’m stretching a bit with Francis Flynn Thorsen’s Realty Gram, but throw some questions at her and I think the answers would come.

In fact, if you are in a state where there are real estate blogs that aren’t answering consumer issues and questions, I strongly encourage you to just start asking those questions. You can help develop more Real Estate Blogs That Answer Questions, simply by ASKING some questions on any blog that you can find. Maybe they will get the point that “Enquiring Minds Want to Know”.

Why FSBO without putting it in the MLS?

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[photopress:iggy_pop.jpg,thumb,alignright]

Last week, a Seattle-area woman contacted us out of the blue asking if we advertise FSBOs and FSBO open houses on ShackPrices (we don’t), which led to a back-and-forth exchange that went sort of like this:

Me: Out of curiosity, why don’t you list your home in the MLS for $400 and get a lot more exposure? If you’re worried about the 2% – 3% commission, just mark it up that much.

Her: It’s sort of an experiment.

Me: Ah.

Me (in my mind):A $400,000 experiment that will probably result in significantly less exposure for your home and probably result in a longer time to sell (and result in continued payments during that time!) at the very least? Skip the experiment, list it on the MLS and buy yourself a new (if inexpensive) car with the money you are likely going to lose!

Yesterday an even better solution for FSBOs popped up: IggysHouse.com lets you list your house on the MLS for free. Experiments aside, it makes a lot of sense if you’re a FSBOer to get your property in the system that almost every home buyer looks to for listing information.

Do not be offended, dear real estate agent reader. This free listing service, which is apparently a slap in the face of real estate agents, is actually a backhanded compliment. IggysHouse claims to be offering this just so FSBOers will consider their buyer agent service, but it’s clear that they are convinced they can sell those FSBOers on other products and services and that a decent percentage of their FSBO listers will be convinced to work with an agent when they don’t find success going alone or have trouble getting through the close or negotiating with someone who has done it 100 times before.

Update: Greg Swann thinks Iggy’s House will make money from mortgages.

Two Years and Still Learning…

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Mind if I reminisce a bit?

When I started Rain City Guide two years ago today, I honestly didn’t see the big picture.

I built the site because I *knew* I had to market my wife’s budding real estate business and I didn’t want to spend any money… (Even if I wasn’t a cheapskate at heart, my job as a transportation planner didn’t provide a lot extra money to begin with). Blogging was cheap and interesting (and I’ll admit it helped that I was familiar with the technology having hand-coded travel blogs going back as far back as 2000), but most importantly it would allow me to focus my wife’s marketing energy on something that wouldn’t siphon money from my family’s bank account.

But then I started doing some research and I realized that I could probably still make an impact because of my first-mover status. There were a few Seattle agents blogging at the time (Jim Reppond and Beau Betts come to mind…), but I could tell that neither of them were really harnessing the power of blogs to function as a local newspaper on a very niche topic.

It has become cliché to mention that in this latest incarnation of the internet (web2.0 for lack of a better world), the user has become the content creator. One of the lessons I try to drive home in my seminars is that this same “user” is you. Thanks to the power of blogs, you can now become the publisher of your own newspaper (What would Abbie do with wifi?).

The power of self-publishing (and the part that is easily overlooked) is that you do not have to create the news… You just have to report it (preferably in an interesting way!).

I see so many agents get stuck on their blogging because they are trying to say something novel, unique and/or brilliant with every post. Very few people are that talented and it is not a skill necessary skill to either selling real estate or successful blogging. As a publisher of content, it is much more important to add a little personal insight into the aggregated knowledge of others.

So, what is the big picture? Enjoy the journey because the destination is unknown!

My advice? Enjoy yourself, make friends, get an education, invoke change in yourself, ask questions, play hard, experiment, and, most importantly, be prepared to fail.

But I’d be doing myself and everyone else a big disservice if the best I could do after two years of blogging was pontificate for a few paragraphs. The reality is that the thing I most value in RCG is the community. Through 1,010 posts (1,011 when I hit publish!) and 9970 comments, I’d like to think that we’ve not only created one hell of an interesting conversation, but that we’ve managed to learn a few things along the way. Thank you for participating!

In Search of a Secret Weapon

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You: An articulate, interesting and dynamic real estate agent/broker with a desire and determination to turbo-charge your online marketing activities. You have a wild streak and are willing to consider the day (potentially sooner than later) when nearly all of your business is generated online (a la Ardell)

Me: A ruthless online real estate marketing machine looking for a short-term commitment so that we can walk on stage in San Francisco at Inman’s Bloggers Connect conference as the winners of Project Blogger. 🙂

I happen to know that Ardell already has already chosen her secret weapon… so has Jim. While I have a few people in mind, I figured I’d open it up to the RCG community before I commit to anyone. (While not required, it would be helpful if you’ve either already attended one of my seminars or would be willing to attend the March 30 seminar in Pasadena…)

Note that there are a bunch of rules and guidelines, but we’ll do our best to differentiate ourselves by not following too many! I’m of the opinion that no one wins in marketing (personal, professional or corporate) by following the rules. 😉

Also, there was discussion while developing “the rules” on the appropriate amount of money that a participant could spend promoting themselves. If you team with me, this will be a very cheap endeavor. I need someone willing to commit time not money…

You can apply to take part by leaving a comment below. My recommendation is to read up on the event and then convince me that you are hungry and can commit to focusing your marketing activities to the online environment over the next few months. There WILL be a lot of publicity around this event, so this is not for the timid.

And in all seriousness, expect to have a lot of fun!

Now that Matt…

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… has a new condo in Bellevue at the Meritage, you might have thought he would slow down the pace of his condo blogging at Urbnlivn. But no chance there… instead he unleashes the urbnlivn forum for the Seattle-area Market. Very cool. It’s a little quiet at the moment (the site is brand new), but I’m sure under Matt’s guidance, it won’t stay quiet for long…

Also a belated, but HUGE, congratulations to Matt on your new condo!

2007 Still looking like a Seller's Market

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I ran my stats this morning to track where the market is heading for 2007, based on properties For Sale, In Escrow and Closed so far since the first of the year. I use the stats for Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland as the basis for my market research, as this area has a huge component of housing in almost every market segment,and represents are high expectations for market conditions. When this area turns weak, we need to take notice.

So far, it appears that my prediction that 2007 will meet or exceed that of 2006, appears to be on target.

The full data is on my site, with more graphs, but here are the quotes of particular relevance.

“…75% of the market will still be a SELLER”S MARKET in 2007, based on how the year is opening up so far. We do not begin to see inventory tipping over into a balanced or buyer’s market until we get over $800,000 in price, which only represents about 25% of the housing market, in the area I have chosen to examine.”

“The dominant portion of this market is between $200,000 and $600,000…which is by and large “the safer zone” representing 63.6% of all home buyers and sellers in the Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond markets and the area most likely to rise at 15% to 25% or greater in value by the end of this year.”

 

“Statistics not compiled or published by NWMLS.” NWMLS is the data source I used to compile the data and I created and published the graph.  MLS rule to post this.

Inman has Gone Blog Wild

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and it is a good thing!

Looks like they just published the first of a 4-part series on real estate blogging (only by subscription after today!). Lots of good stuff from some of today’s heavy hitters!

It was great to see Todd of Lenderama get some exposure for his (very cool) REMBEX search tool.

Also want to say thanks to Greg… I think he’s running one of the best real estate sites on the web, so it means a lot to me when he gives credit to RCG for some of his inspiration.

While I’m talking about Inman, I thought I’d mention that, like many other real estate bloggers, I’ve been invited to participate in their Blogger’s Connect at the very end of July. I’m definitely looking forward to it as I had a lot of fun last year in San Francisco… From the overview:

The content, speakers and workshops are being designed in the blogosphere. We have invited 20 leading real estate bloggers to use their blogs to reach out to their readers to invent the program.
Imagine the first “user-generated program” including panels, topics and sessions. Could be silly, could be interesting — certain to be fun.

Bloggers Connect will begin on Tuesday, July 31 with a party and then all-day sessions on August 1. Fun and crazy events are being built into the program including the Dive Bar Tour, the Haight Asbury experience and the blogging romp.