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!

CORE #147 - Carnival of Real Estate Hosted at Mike's Corner

I'll be hosting the CORE (Carnival of Real Estate) next week. This will be the 3rd time the Carnival has stopped at Mike's Corner here in H-Town. The uninitiated should take the time to check it out. Why is it called a carnival?. Rembember when you were a kid? The carnival would show up in your town. In my case we would cut grass, hunt down pop bottle refunds and suffer the indignity of baby sitting my little sisters only to find out the carnival was bout to pack up go to another town that was way to far to ride our bikes. In the case of CORE, the town happens to the location of a selected host blogger and the stay is for a week starting every Monday. The carnival host accepts submissions of the best post(s) of the past couple of weeks from other real estate bloggers from across the web. The host then selects the best of those posts to showcase and provide awards. In my opinion, if the Carnival Host is doing things correctly, there will always be a clear winner.

Over the last couple of years the hosts have been very creative with themes for hosting the CORE, usually based on a holiday taking place at that time or just a generally entertaining way to introduce what the host believes to be the best in real estate blogging content.

When if first stumbled upon the real estate version of CORE if found it to be just the tool I had been searching for to help me in my quest to keep up with great content. As the real estate blogging community has grown, so have the number of top notch blog destinations. It can be a daunting task to search out and read only the best. CORE helps that effort in a big way.

MLBroadcast hosts a great audio podcast for the Carnival of Real Estate. From time-to-time the folks at Zillow will interview the CORE host for insight on their picks, criteria for selection, themes and more. Get a free subscription here (iTunes). You will enjoy the conversations.

Submit your best post(s) between now and this upcoming Saturday. If you ned to get your submission in a little late and the form is not working you can e-mail it to me. Be sure to include all of the required information. I will start making selections Sunday afternon. If you're interested in becoming involved with CORE, check out these links:

• Host a Carnival
• Promote the CoRE
• Write for CoRE

I'm Back!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I haven't gone anywhere - Life and family matters had to take a front seat to my social networking and blogging efforts for a while.

I will be posting again on a regular basis soon and look forward to reconnecting with my friends in the RE.net.