Carnival of Real Estate #165

This week's edition of CORE had 17 submissions. Here are my picks.

Honorable Mention - Matt Swanson - GeekEstate Blog

How To Eliminate The Guesswork From Site Design

While I personally think there are many more intracacies and nuances of establishing a winning web presence, Matthew does a great job of exposing readers to some fantastic analytic tools and links to other posts that, when combined, create a tremendous resource for understanding what does and doesn't work in your real estate web presence.

Honorable Mention - Erion Shehaj - ErionShehaj.com

The Ray Kroc Principle

If you've never had a chance to read Erion's posts on his blog and over at AgentGenius, you're missing out on one of the best voices in contemporary real estate. Erion is someone I classify as one of the good guys. Not only is he one of the more pleasant people you will encounter in this industry, he says what he means and means what he says - without reservation.

Erion gives us what I look for in a great blog post. It's concise, to the point and leaves you with something to ponder. In this case it's simple, "Show me that it works". I agree completely.

3rd. Place - Cindy Jones - VARealestateTalk Blog

The New "Deed For Lease" Program Hits A Neighborhood Near You

One of the newer and lesser known options for those facing foreclosure is the "Deed For Lease" program that essentially offers someone the ability to turn over their Deeds in exchange for a 1 year lease in their homes. Cindy does a good job of explaining the program and its potential impact on the Real Estate industry.

2nd. Place - Stan Humphries - Zillow Blog

New Homebuyer Tax Credit Proposal: Impact on the Housing Market

There were several posts regarding the Tax Credit extension. I think Stan's information and analysis was the best of these posts. Like so many things being established via legislation, the long term impact of this program is going to have a huge detrimental impact if it is not coupled with a strong and concerted effort to create jobs and programs designed to TRULY support small businesses.

The banks that gobbled up the stimulus coin need to start lending it to the engine that really keeps our economy thriving. To me that engine is defined as the sole proprietors and entrepreneurs with a handful of employees that put passion and endless energy into the dreams they have built for themselves. One of my big fears is that the current administration doesn't really understand the definition of small business. So many things are happening now that could have many of them throwing in the towel because it just doesn't make fiscal sense to even try. Stan says "...so they can start hiring now that the economy is officially growing again." There are a lot of reports surfacing that the "official" numbers were left to bake in the oven a little while. It will be official when your conversations with friends and family are about how well everyone is doing, not about who got laid off or had to shutter their business.

1st. Place - YOU!

I've intentionally left the winning spot open. I want to take an opportunity to use it to help breathe some life back into core and draw attention to what a tremendous resource it can be for any real estate blogger.

The Carnival of Real Estate was established by Zillow to allow the RE.net to take advantage of the popular concept of exposing the best blog posts in a particular vertical. The weekly hosts of CORE receive great exposure and the highlighted posts receive traffic they may not have otherwise received. As the folks at Zillow become busier, they don't have the resources to do as much promotion for CORE as they once were able to do. It's up to the RE.net community to take ownership and breathe some new life back into a tremendous resource. I know when I first started blogging almost 4 years ago, I turned to CORE as a tremendous way to help me find the best content to engage with. If you have ideas, want to be a host or just forgot that the CORE was out there as place to promote your best writing - get involved again. I'll have more to say in future posts on CORE and GeekEstate. Until then, let us know what you think and get involved.

UPDATED: Podcast: Paul Chaney Discusses His Upcoming Social Media Book, The Digital Handshake

In the latest episode of Mike's Mic, Paul Chaney takes time to discuss his forthcoming book, The Digital Handshake. The book covers proven strategies geared toward small businesses interested in exploring how social media can be used productively and proactively. With the shelves stuffed full of tomes on how to become an expert in the still nascent world of social media, I asked Paul why his would stand out. If the book stands up to his answers, I think it will do very well. As always, I will be doing a follow up book report once the final version is released. If you're a real estate professional or small business person just entering into a social media strategy, or if you want to find out about the best tools for the job - mark September 22nd on your calendar. That's the date the book is scheduled to start shipping.

You can now listen to any episode of Mike's Mic directly from the site with the new widget in the sidebar. Let me know if you have any issues with it. Click the graphic below to get a free subscription of Mike's Mic via iTunes.

Subscribe In iTunes:

Update 08/21/09. Want a chance to win a signed copy of "The Digital Handshake"? Just subscribe to the podcast and listen to Paul's interview. Leave a comment or a question here regarding the episode and you'll be entered into a drawing to receive one of the first copies of the book personally signed by Paul (there will be two winners). How cool is that?

Yahoo Launches New Real Estate Resource

I didn't make it to Inman Connect this year in SF but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying the steady stream of announcements and information coming from the event. I have been tracking #icsf in Twitter and following some of the live Qik streaming that a few people are doing (thanks Rudy @Trulia) and it helps ease the pain of being in Houston in this sweltering weather instead of wearing a sweater out by the bay.

One of the more interesting things I saw come across the Twitter stream was an announcement by Yahoo that they have launched a new real estate resource entitled "In The Know". When you have the benefit of being able to track so much information and data you also have the ability to package an deliver it in a meaningful way, and at first blush this looks like an awesome resource for consumers and real estate professionals alike. At the top of the interface you will find a pane that allows you to scroll right and left through topics and expand the topic to get a bit of the information that you might possibly link out to. It's an efficient way to preview the info. The other categories include "Trend Surfing", "Know It All?", "Industry Buzz", "Industry Search" and "By The Numbers". What I found somewhat surprising was that the top search topic was "manufactured housing".

I haven't had a chance to put it completely through its paces yet, however, Yahoo's "In The Know" resource for real estate just might be a daily bookmarked visit for me. What do you think?

"How Cool Is That?" - RE Barcamp 1 Year Later

Quantity or Quality?
Who knew that when Andy Kaufman presented the idea on Twitter a year ago that maybe a Real Estate focused Barcamp was a good idea that close to 30 events will have taken place or been planned to take place by the end of the year? (Don't know what a Barcamp is? Click Here) Who knew that one of our own would be hired by NAR as the Social Media Director or that an RE Barcamp would take place at NAR headquarters with NAR President, Dale Stinton there as one of the Campers? Brad Coy, Todd Carpenter, Jason Berman, yours truly and many others jumped in head first to the inaugural effort in SF without any idea what would happen or how many people would attend. I worked the phones and e-mail, did a logo and every person I spoke to said yes to sponsoring at $250. Benn Rosales and a few other people had the same result. Our friends and contacts were buying in based on the group of people involved. Zillow even located their "Beer With Bloggers" Inman Connect sponsorship right next door to the location of the event. That's a pretty expensive sponsorship slot and Zillow gambled on moving it so far from the venue. It was a resounding success and the format was pretty much pure Barcamp rules. There have been a few open conference calls to discuss the state of the movement and what could be done to help those interested in setting up events in their own respective areas. There have been some great successes, however, many of them were done in more traditional conference format with leveled sponsorships etc. I can only assume that the measure of success was based on a comparison to other traditional style events. I can understand why some of the organizers took this route. I alluded to it in my analysis of the second RE Barcamp that I helped organize in Houston. Brad Coy, Andy Kaufman and Ginger Wilcox recently had a meeting regarding the one year anniversary of REBC, here's what they had to say:

"For the one year anniversary of RE BarCamp, Brad, Andy and I sat around a table trying to figure out how to make REBC bigger and better, but we realized that it doesn’t need to be bigger. The size of the event does'nt really make it better. So, how do we make it better?"

I am in complete agreement. Quality is more important to these events. I'm not sure where the tipping point is, but I would guess its at around 90 to 100 registrants. I would rather see people do more events with less participants. In the end what I think doesn't matter, it's up to the local organizers to plan their events and establish their own goals and measurements of success.

Participants, Not Attendees
I think that trying to get large groups of re professionals to attend an "un-conference" is probably antithetical to the concept, certainly so with first time events. Barcamps need participants, not attendees. The format can be a bit intimidating due to that fact. Because they are volunteer based and done without a profit motive in mind, you'll always have a hard time getting enough people in a ground crew out to explain it to enough folks ahead of the event. NAR is behind the movement and perhaps over time the events can be larger and still achieve the same benefits for the participants, but until then I think the idea of keeping the events limited to the resources at hand is a good one. For instance, Seattle is about to embark on their second event. The first was a resounding success and there were enough people participating in REBCSEA1 to help get the word out for a second effort.

I have no issue with conferences and seminars. It's pretty easy to pack a room of re attendees these days and talk about Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or any number of other cool web, social or technology related tools. They are the hot topics of the day. I'm glad to see these type of traditional events and expos taking place. MLBroadcast is one of the new tools being used to leverage the new rules of real estate. Anything done to help our clients have a better understanding of how their content is being exposed and distributed these days only makes our job easier.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us
What shouldn't happen is for anyone to make the mistake of comparing a properly executed BarCamp to a traditional tracked event where the agenda is owned (literally and figuratively) by event planners.

"Barcamps are not days filled with speakers and power point decks. If the complete agenda has been established before you get there and has not been generated by the event's participants, it's a conference. In a Barcamp you do not have to participate in the discussions etc., however, it is strongly encouraged"

When you look at "The Details" sidebar of the SF RE Barcamp site you'll see when, where, how and the most important - Why;

"Why: To build connections. To better grow our businesses. To push boundaries. To be creative in an open and supportive forum."

The topics and complete agenda for a Barcamp should be created on the fly, the morning of the event. It's o.k. to come up with some example session topics ahead of time, but whether or not they get implemented should be up to the participants. Here is the official description of what is now a world wide phenomena.

"Barcamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event."

Even at the regular Barcamps I have attended I haven't seen anyone stick to the rule that session topics shouldn't be product presentations or demos. Sponsors are going to talk about their products, so be it. Chances are the kind of sponsor that ponies up for an RE barcamp will spend more time waxing philosophical and sharing deep knowledge than they will trying to sell you product. It just seems to be in the nature of the type of people that frequent these events. Don't get me wrong, they want you to buy their products, but like those with the right kind of social media strategies, they are just as concerned with creating a branding position and top of mind awareness.

I Gotta Get Outta This Place
Personally, what I am more interested in seeing, hearing and being a part of are debates and discussions that are local and/or topical. In many cases they wont have anything to do with technology or social media, and to that I say, "Thank Goodness". I spend the better part of my awake hours deeply ensconced in all of this stuff and sometimes I really want to just engage in a real life human to human conversation! I want to hear about new business models. I want to know about the things that impact my customer base that have absolutely nothing to do with 0's and 1's. The more I know about what keeps my clients awake at night, the better job I can do designing solutions for them. The 2nd of all of the RE Barcamps was held in Houston. We had a really sharp guy show up to talk about consumer credit issues and ideas that were way outside of the box, It was fascinating and really opened up the eyes of those that attended. Two way discussions that spark debate and open the minds of the participants to new ways of thinking are proffered along side the typical agent questions "How does "X*" make me money?" or "Where do I find time to Blog if I am selling real estate?"

It's What You Make of It
The RE Barcamp movement will continue to evolve and change. It obviously is going to look completely different from one market to the next. The format lends itself to providing content at whatever level you want it to be and the answers you get will more than likely come from someone with a deep well of knowledge based on real world experience. The best part, it will probably come from someone without any other value proposition in mind but to be helpful to a fellow human. How cool is that?


PS, I won't be making it to REBCSF next month. I would love to be there but it's just not in the cards. I hope to see many of you in October at RE Blogworld Though!
PSS, Planning for RE Barcamp Houston is going to need to get under way soon, if you attended last year and want to help with this year's event, email me at mprice AT mlbroadcast DOT com.
Cheers Everybody

*Where X is Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Podcasting etc. etc.

Mike's Corner Now MLBroadcast Blog - New Website Launched

I would like to extend a big thank you to all of the faithful readers of Mike's Corner over the past 3 years. I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of blogging and a platform that has allowed me to share my opinions of the real estate industry and real estate 2.0. No worries, I am not going away, just sort of relocating. MLBroadcast.Com/blog needs to morph into a platform that does a better job of focusing on our product and the niche we serve. As such, I will be working on a new location (and name) for Mike's Corner where I can continue to write the kind of content that seems to resonate with more people than I could have imagined it would. If you would like to receive an email notification when I launch, please drop me a line at 360podcast AT gmail DOT com with your email address and I will let you know the new URL.

As for this blog, I hope you'll remain subscribed as we talk about how our product and syndicated content in general can be one of the most effect tools in your real estate marketing arsenal. In our goal to do a better job of presenting our product to the real estate community, we have launched an entirely new web site. I hope you'll take a few minutes to review it and let me know what you think. Coming up next: How MLBroadcast community content creates tremendous search engine results.

Carnival of Real Estate #147 - Get Out Your Shades

Ah summer time! Most Americans are getting excited about vacations, camping, boating, fishing, swimming and carnivals... in other words, sunglass weather - gotta watch those UVA's. - Real estate professionals typically get excited about the short couple of months where the offers are multiple and the closings bountiful. Of course, for most that's a distant memory of summers gone by. So what are most doing to fill the void? Sharpening the saw. Right? Learning new skills, joining the social networking craze, reading blogs etc. The Carnival of Real Estate is an invaluable resource for the latter because it protects sensitive eyes from viewing blog posts that cause time loss and retinal damage from exposure to poorly written pabulum and overtly self-promotional content. It's with that in mind that this weeks carnival theme assigns the FDA's new UVA rating of 1 to 4 stars, (4 being the most protection ).

I picked Dave Smith as the overall winner because I feel so strongly that there exists huge opportunity in finding creative ways to deliver great community content that is part of the RE professional's own intellectual property, not just linking to the same information or using template content that does nothing to set you apart as the location expert in your area. Good stuff Dave!

Overall Winner, 4 Star UVA Protection

Dave Smith - Real Estate Blog Lab

Post Title: Loosen Up, Look Around, Sell Your Town

3 Star UVA Protection

Jack Schmidt - Sector Matic Money Journal

Post Title: Making Money? "Trust Me: I'm In Real Estate"

2 Star UVA Protection

Tina Merritt - Hampton Roads Virginia Real Estate - Tina in Virginia

Post Title: The Ten Commandments of Commenting - Thou Shalt Not........

1 Start UVA Protection

Jay Thompson - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

Post Title: The Perils of a Part Time Agent

Thanks to everyone ( except the spyware removal tool spammer guy - jeez!) for submitting your entries to CORE. If you enjoy CORE as a resource as much as I do, visit the site to see how you can get involved!