Best of the worst: BloodhoundBlog’s most popular posts for 2007

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Here’s a comment that got deleted earlier tonight, a pearl of wisdom issued from one orifice or another by a less-than-brilliant pundit who chose to keep his or her identity concealed. The soul and substance of this partial portion of wit:

this is easily the worst blog on the RE.net

Todd Seavey wrote a brilliant essay this week on the nature of this kind of drive-by malice, but ours is a very special kind of misanthrope. For our anonymous abortive commenter is so well versed in the greater and the lesser, the better and the worse, the ridiculous and the sublime of the RE.net that he or she seems not to know that I coined the term ‘RE.net’.

“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” Indeed. I know from a lifetime’s experience that I bring out the worst of the bad in people. That much requires no special effort on my part. I strive, when I remember to think about it, to bring out the best of the good in people, as well. And while BloodhoundBlog is not “easily the worst blog on the RE.net,” we have a colorable if not utterly incontestable claim to being the best of our breed. And if we are not beyond all doubt the very best, it is certainly not for the lack of effort.

Witness: These are the top 25 most popular BloodhoundBlog posts for 2007, expressed in terms of hard clicks:

1. What’s Wrong with zipRealty? by Russell Shaw
2. HR 3915 Is Dangerous by Brian Brady
3. HR 3915: Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007 by Brian Brady
4. More on the iPhone… by Greg Swann
5. Is the Subprime Mortgage Market the next Enron? by Brian Brady
6. How to make Google your weblog’s best friend… by Greg Swann
7. HARD MONEY: Life as a Legal Loan Shark by Brian Brady
8. The Countrywide Federal Bailout Act of 2008 by Brian Brady
9. 401(k)’s IRA’s & Urban Myths by Jeff Brown
10. Redfin.com’s Real Estate Consumer’s Bill of Rights: A wolf in sheepskin clothing… by Greg Swann
11. Game Time: What Are Your Favorite Real Estate Slogans? by Dan Green
12. Subprime Loans Disappeared? Learn How to be a Hard Money Loan Broker by Brian Brady
13. San Diego Fire Update — It’s Now Approaching Historical — 10% of Population Evacuated by Jeff Brown
14. Digital real estate photography: Which photographer? Which camera? by Greg Swann
15. Project City Center in Las Vegas: Now that’s a model home! by Greg Swann
16. Hillary Clinton and Rotarian Socialism: What’s wrong with the NAR? by Greg Swann
17. Arizona Board of Appraisal to Zillow.com: In your Zestimation, does this posturing make us look stupid? by Greg Swann
18. 60 Minutes’ Redfin.com story delivers 400 hits in 60 minutes flat… by Greg Swann
19. BAD LOANS: Buried In The Back Of The BreadBox by Brian Brady
20. Disingenuous Diatribe: Compliance is Crap-It’s About the Cash by Brian Brady
21. Realtor.com Pencil Sharpener by Russell Shaw
22. Bank Relationships vs. Mortgage Brokers by Michael Cook
23. The Right Time to Buy: An Investor Perspective by Michael Cook
24. Why The Traditional Real Estate Model Is Fading Away by Jeff Brown
25. Planet Zillow.com: Burgeoning Realty.bot grows, potentially, to become a self-sustaining residential real estate eco-system by Greg Swann

How popular is popular? The last post on the list had almost 1,100 hard clicks. Russell’s post on Zip Realty has become the samizdat of Zip with over 15,000 hard clicks and 240 comments.

But: Hard clicks are not the ideal measure of popularity for a weblog like ours. We have a great many RSS and email subscribers, so a hard click can often be a measure of attention coming from sources we cannot rely on every day.

Here’s a different measure of popularity, the top 25 most commented-upon BloodhoundBlog posts for 2007:

1. What’s Wrong with zipRealty? by Russell Shaw
2. Disingenuous Diatribe: Compliance is Crap-It’s About the Cash by Brian Brady
3. Real Estate Bloggers — Why Are You Blogging? What Currency Does Your Banker Accept? by Jeff Brown
4. Keeping Up With What Frank Doesn’t Know — Earth Round — Circles Sun by Jeff Brown
5. The Countrywide Federal Bailout Act of 2008 by Brian Brady
6. Arizona Board of Appraisal to Zillow.com: In your Zestimation, does this posturing make us look stupid? by Greg Swann
7. House Agents — Wanna Start the New Year Kickin’ Ass? Here’s How by Jeff Brown
8. HR 3915: Open Letter to Senator Dodd from a Veteran Mortgage Originator by Brian Brady
9. If there is no Realtor monopoly — then what explains the commission structure? by Michael Cook
10. A world fit to be conquered: Five steps to total real estate listing dominance by Greg Swann
11. Is the Subprime Mortgage Market the next Enron? by Brian Brady
12. Realtor.com Pencil Sharpener by Russell Shaw
13. BOHICA…and this time it is Trulia by Eric Blackwell
14. Wanna Go North? Stop Heading South. by Brian Brady
15. Cathy’s drama: Photos from the whatever-it-takes school of listing by Greg Swann
16. Lani Anglin’s brother’s children lost their father yesterday. Here’s what you can do to help… by Greg Swann
17. Defending Redfin: Sweet Digs weblog buried by inane MLS rules by Greg Swann
18. Third-party vendors pick up where the NAR leaves off: Milking the Realtors dry by Greg Swann
19. Podcast with Redfin.com CEO Glenn Kelman: “We’re looking for nerds living in nice houses” by Kris Berg
20. From forty links to infinity: Apprehending the full scope of the RE.net by Greg Swann
21. Lessons Learned While Watching American Idol by Jeff Turner
22. Redfin.com’s Real Estate Consumer’s Bill of Rights: A wolf in sheepskin clothing . . . by Greg Swann
23. 401(k)’s IRA’s & Urban Myths by Jeff Brown
24. No committee will ever make the Cluetrain run on time by Greg Swann
25. Mademoiselle? Oui. La Spinster?…ZUT! by Geno Petro

We are nothing “easily,” I promise you, and although the web is rife with advice on EZ weblogging — EZ reading, EZ writing, EZ obscurity — we’ve achieved what we have by means of dogged determination and hard work. And here comes another year. We intend to run — in 2008 and always — at the head of the pack. We’re delighted to have you with us, but we’ll be expecting you to keep the pace.