Carnival of Real Estate #34

Mike's Corner is proud to host this week's Carnival of Real Estate. Submissions trickled in during the week with most showing up Saturday and Sunday. We only received a total of 28 entries. I'm assuming it's due to the fact that it's spring break in many parts of the country.

Congratulations to this week's winner, Trulia Blog for the funny 3 part series that chronicles the sale of a Trulia team member's property. Our number 2 selection is from Brian Brady of the Bloodhound blog for his take on the sub-prime meltdown and its effect on retirement income. Pick number 3 is Pat Kitano of Transparent Real Estate's philosophical waxing regarding the RE.Net and cooperation amongst bloggers. While I disagree with Pat on his opinion that non-blogging Realtors will eventually be invisible to search engines, I whole heartedly agree that diplomatic networking amongst bloggers will become critical to the RE.Net as whole.

Win: Heather Fernandez presents (Mis)adventures in home selling, part 3: The End posted at Trulia Blog"Roger, a software engineer at Trulia.com, chronicles his home selling (mis)adventure on TruliaBlog in funny three-part series. His experience included fielding low ball offers, MOLD (the inspection scare du jour) and finally the Escrow close."

Place: Brian Brady presents BAD LOANS: Buried In The Back Of The BreadBox posted at BloodhoundBlog

Show: Pat Kitano of Transparent Real Estate presents Spirit of Community

Other Selections In No Particular Order:

Craig Schiller presents THINK CRUSTY THOUGHTS...when taking pictures of homes for sale posted at HOME STAGING, Rants & Ravings, saying, "Knowing that photography is going to get to be MORE AND MORE critical in marketing properties online...

Steve Faber presents Subprime Lenders Reaping What They Sowed posted at Debt Free

Nigel Swaby presents Who Does a Down Payment Benefit? posted at Salt Lake Real Estate Blog.

David J Edwards presents The Do-Not-Mail Movement is a Bad Idea posted at Renton Real Estate Info Source

Daniel Rothamel presents When You Are Being Judged By Your Actions, Act Accordingly posted at The Real Estate Zebra

Silicon Valley Blogger presents 6 Ways To Protect Yourself From Different Types Of Mortgage Fraud posted at The Digerati Life

A. Grey presents Linking Real Estate Content With User Context: Basic Concepts of Data and Metadata posted at For Sale By Locals: A New Real Estate Approach

Thanks to everyone that participated. Next week's host is Maureen Francis of the MiOakland County Blog Be sure to get your submissions in by Sunday to give Maureen plenty of time to evaluate your excellent content. Cheers! ~MP

Featured Real Estate Blog

I've decided to start featuring what I think are good examples of good Realtor® Blogs. Great local content is the primary feature that I believe sets the standard. My first feature is The Harper Team, a Keller Williams team in Danville, CA. Here are 3 things that set this blog apart from the pack:

1. Local content that is "narrowcasted" to a specific audience. This establishes credibility and experience.
2. Clean, easy to navigate design. The blog isn't cluttered by useless elements and they have done an excellent job of integrating the design into the feed links. I wish we had time to re-design our blog to integrate with our brand better, which brings me to number:
3. Brand integration. This site blends into the overall web presence of The Harper Team. They have done an excellent job of delivering relevant blogging content without self-promotion, however, in the the likely event that someone is a prospect, they are only a click away from the content they need.

Pat Kitano of Transparent RE is working with John Harper to begin training their counterparts on the world of Real Estate blogging. I think they will be very capable educators indeed. If you're a Realtor® struggling with your blogging efforts, the Harper Team blog is a shining example of what to strive for.