Author: Greg Swann (page 164 of 209)

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Wanna hear something incredible? Odysseus the TV Spokesmodel Bloodhound, unbeknownst to anyone, has been serving as the Spokesmodel for an internet vendor’s site. Involuntarily. Without compensation. Without permission.

Forgive me for the following enormous image:

Who doesn’t love those eyes staring out at you, looking for you through the mail slot. But what you are seeing are BloodhoundBlog, Pittsburgh Homes Daily and Mike’s Corner, all pimping for the “free” weblogs offered by Incredible Agent.

Incredible chutzpah, in any case. I’m sure they would want to argue that they are using these three weblogs to illustrate the idea of a real estate weblog. Why wouldn’t they use some of their own weblogs as illustrations? You answer that one. What matters is that they cannot use the work product — and likenesses! — of the contributors to BloodhoundBlog to sell their product without our permission.

We have asked them to cease and desist, informing the other offended parties.

I am told — I have not checked myself — that their “free” weblogs are not even free weblogs in the sense that you can get a free weblog from Blogger.com or WordPress.com — sign up and you’re on your way. Instead, the Incredible Agent “free” weblog offer seems to be a lead gathering form. I don’t care. I cannot imagine a worse way to advertise their business that inciting three prominent real estate webloggers to publicly express our anger at their sleazy sales tactics.

Smart…

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I have a certain affection for the Mortgage Matters weblog by Holden Lewis at Bankrate.com. It’s a little bit enbubbulated, but that’s to be expected from what is, in fact, a mainstream media outlet. That notwithstanding, the site is very informative, and a lot of fun to read. I get the impression that Lewis doesn’t like BloodoundBlog all that much, but that’s okay: The link-love he sends our way is abundant and unconditional.

Because I like it, and because I have no idea how to send an email to Lewis, here are some things I would like to see changed about the site:

• I think Bankrate.com should invest in WordPress Multi-User. They have multiple weblogs already, and, without doubt, they will be adding more. It’s time to jump to a real weblogging platform.
• Once that move is made, Lewis should start working in contemporary weblogging style, one topic to a post, each one permanently linkable. For now, he is writing in journal-like entries, multiple topics in, at most, one post per day. This harkens back to the posting style of Andrew Sullivan’s old Blogger.com weblog, but he didn’t know what he was doing. He has since learned better.
• Each of the Bankrate.cm weblogs should have its own RSS feed — easily done with WP MU. Right now, there is one feed for all of Bankrate.com, news, blogs, the works.
• Enable comments. I don’t agree with the notion that a weblog is not a weblog without comments, but, certainly, conversation builds community. Enable trackbacks and pingbacks, too.
• Provide a way to email Lewis. Right now, you can use a little contact box that will email Lewis (or possibly anyone) provided you already know what email address to use. I love things that are this perfectly broken, but, even so: It’s broken.

Switching platforms now will be a hardship, surely, but switching platforms later will be worse. Mortgage Matters is a good weblog. It deserves more exposure.

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

And today we introduce still another new contributor:

Jeff Turner is the founder, president and COO of Real Estate Shows, which produces internet commercials from Realtor-supplied photos. A life-long successful entrepreneur, Jeff is also the proud father of six children.

Readers here may be familiar with Jeff’s blog on ActiveRain. He also runs Rain for Change, a sort of direct-action community assistance weblog.

Jeff is a vendor, and I will tell you that we have been very careful in our relationships with vendors. “Everybody sells something,” which is a speech I think everyone should give at their next Toastmasters meeting. But there are two perils a weblog like ours confronts, should it become too engaged with vendors.

First is the charge of having sold out. I’d like to think we’re insulated from that, first by our sheer quantity of opinion-makers, and second by the raging diversity of those opinions.

The second peril is simply the cacophony of very polite clamoring from other vendors: “Why not us, too?”

We’re making an exception for Jeff. We trust him not to go all promotional on us, and he is simply too fine a writer to be missed. He even writes poetry…

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Today we add a new contributor, Michael Cook of the Cook Squared Real Estate Enterprises weblog:

Partnering with his wife, Michael Cook is a commercial real estate investor who complicates his life as an MBA student at The S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

Michael is relatively new as a weblogger, and, here and at his home weblog, his plan is to share with us his journey as an entrepreneurial commercial real estate investor.

We trimmed a couple of names from our roster, as well. Tony Fredericks and Ronan Doyle have been too busy in their real lives, for now, to add content here. We’ll be welcoming them back into the pack when they are able to free up time.

We are talking with several other potential contributors, and, as always, we are eager to consider more. If we haven’t approached you directly, it doesn’t mean we’re not interested. If you would like to write with us, assert yourself.

How big is too big? The RE.net is turning strongly local, which I think is a sound idea. But at BloodhoundBlog we are not competing for business. Our goal is to apprehend if not completely comprehend the art, the science, the business and the philosophy of Real Estate writ large. We’ll stop growing when we’ve caged that beast, not before.

And: This question has come up: Qui Bono? Who benefits? This is what I said in the Rain City Guide interview with BloodhoundBlog’s contributors:

What we’re really up to is an idea I call The Third Career. Most of us came to real estate from something else, and, as we are wise, we know this is not our last stop in the world of work. My immediate goal for BloodhoundBlog is to make it the best-read, most-rewarding real estate weblog in the RE.net. Further out, I want for our contributors to be so well known that they can pursue other opportunities: Public speaking, freelance writing, books, seminars, television shows, etc. I don’t know that we will attain this, necessarily, but the goal itself is definitely attainable: Witness Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit.

For now, I’m interested in growing Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Richard Riccelli and I were talking today about the power of the back-story to sell historic and architecturally unique homes. Here are two car stories to make the point:

• From Ubertor, Re/MAX founder Dave Liniger buys a $1,000,000 Hummer
• From The Garage Blog, Carroll Shelby’s personal Cobra Supersnake sold for $5,000,000

In both cases, what “sold” was not the “fair market value” of a vehicle, but, rather, the unique story that comes as an intangible accessory with the vehicle.

The same kind of “added value” can be applied to homes, if you know their stories well enough to share them with buyers. “The simple truth is, Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle, there are plenty of homes you can have in this neighborhood. But this is the only one that was built by and for a returning Civil War General. The original plans are mounted on the living room wall. Isn’t that something?”

That Cobra Supersnake is a smokin’ automobile, and a true “comp” might easily run you half-a-million dollars. Except there are no truly comparable vehicles. Not only was it Carroll Shelby’s personal ride, it is the only surviving Shelby Supersnake. How much is it worth? How much ya’ got…?

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Continuing on the subject of building what I hope can become a canonical catalog of real estate weblogs, we arrive at the starting place: 150 RE.net weblogs, each one of them vetted by at least one currently-active real estate weblogger.

I can’t promise that the list is 100% accurate — and I know it’s not complete — so I entreat you to email me about any errors or omissions you identify. If you can send me one or ten or a hundred missing weblogs, so much the better.

Dustin and others wondered why I want to do this is this way. Why not a social networking scheme or a wiki? The reason is that there is no substitute for human editing. Any system that allows self-selected volunteers to make entries will be instantly flooded with spam. For what it’s worth, I think we will discover that the purported “wisdom of crowds” consists mostly of coming up with new ways to spam or scam or both.

This list was built by human editors, and, going forward, I want it to be policed by human editors — volunteers suggesting additions and deletions as well as contractors going through the list link-by-link. At some point, I would like to have someone go through the list and split it by categories and locales, but that’s a job for another day.

For now: If you want to participate in this project, jump in. What’s wrong? What could be more right? What’s missing? What’s there that shouldn’t be?

And: What’s next…?

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing