Show Me The Money!

Well, we've been away for a while, but we're back now. We were just busy doing something that not too many agents in these parts are doing right now...selling real estate. Due to Pat's tireless efforts to keep food on our table and a roof over our heads, we now have 12 contracts in excess of $48,000 set to close in the next 6-8 weeks (yeah, we're in a down market). Not too shabby, right? I think I'll keep her. But I digress.

We're going a wee bit off-topic today because we wanted to let you know that we've come into, shall we say, a sum of money. And it was all quite unexpected, too. These e-mails just started popping into our inbox and before you know it, we're gazillionaires. We know you've seen them, too...the ones from the many lawyers you keep on retainer in Nigeria, Great Britain and various other countries; the e-mails from poor unfortunates whose husband/father/pet has died and left you a paltry 8-figure inheritance; the notices from those banks you consulted for reminding you to let them know where to send your multi-million dollar fees to. Those e-mails.

Well, we hate 'em but we've seen them in droves recently, so we decided to keep track of the next 50 that came to us, just to see who was being so generous and how long it would be before we could retire from real estate. So we kept track, and here are the results that have freed us from financial worry:

In six weeks, we have received official correspondence from no fewer than 27 bank officers, 10 executors, 7 lawyers, 5 lottery officials, and the Most Reverend Brother Mike Adams to tell us that we are the fortunate recipients of funds in the amount of - are you ready - 104,878,360GBP (which, at the current exchange rate, equals $206,960,880) and $318,544,000, for a grand total of $525,444,880. Over half a billion dollars! We are truly...blessed. Makes that $48,000 we mentioned earlier look like chump change, doesn't it? We hardly know where to begin spending this windfall, it's just too much to handle all at once. Vast wealth is truly humbling, and gives you a whole new perspective on life. It causes you to ask yourself what you can do for those less fortunate than you: the homeless, the destitute, the victims of disease, disaster, and sub-prime mortgages. Well, we know exactly what to do. We'll share the wealth.

Anybody out there need some money? Just let us know...we'll put you in touch with our priestly benefactor, Brother Mike Adams. Has he got a deal for you.

What The Real Estate Consumer Wants From Your Blog

For some time now, there has been, let's say, a...disagreement between many prominent bloggers regarding what the typical real estate consumer wants when they come to your blog.

On the one hand, there is a faction that believes that the consummate real estate blog should be chock full of juicy morsels of information concerning...real estate. Listings, prices, mortgage rates, open houses, foreclosures, short sales, how the local market is doing, etc. Everything a person needs to know about real estate, all wrapped up nice and neat. The torchbearers of this camp, including such illustrious names as Mary McKnight, Bryant Tutas, and Laurie Manny believe that, in order to give your clients want they want, you should feed them a majority of real estate-related info, all the time. Doing this, they argue, ensures that you will place high in the search engines for your keywords, ensuring that potential clients can find you and ask for your services. And after all, isn't that what you're in business for?

The other camp, helmed by the esteemed Jim Cronin, James Kimmons and Todd Carpenter, espouses the view that you should provide your readers with as much community information as they can stand. The reason for this, they say, is to establish yourself as the community expert by writing on subjects such as community events, reviews of local businesses (such as restaurants, dry cleaners, banks, etc.), local government as it pertains to home ownership, and local history. Now, this also appears to be a worthy goal for any realtor wanting to corner their market, dontcha think? Yeah, I thought so too.

A third, but somewhat less well represented, group has taken the stand that, hey, maybe if you kinda strike an even balance between real estate and community info, I might just stick around for a while and maybe, just maybe, I'll contact you when it's time for me to buy/sell/rent/invest.
Blogger Sean Purcell had an eloquent take on this position over at BloodhoundBlog. Me being the diplomatic, middle-of-the-road kind of guy that I am, I tend to pitch my tent in this camp, or at least try to. This way, I'm hopefully giving my present and future clients equal measures of what they want and want they don't know they need.

Having said all this, I don't see a whole lot of information about someone actually asking Mr. and Mrs. Public exactly what it is they want when they read a real estate blog. So I asked.

There's a pretty engaging web site called BuzzDash where you can take little mini-opinion polls covering a multiude of subjects, including real estate. You create your own little poll and if the honchos at BuzzDash deem your question worthy of asking, they post it to their site. And being the generous guys they are, they let you post it to yours, too. Just take a look at the sidebar to the left and you'll see my personal mini-poll as it appears on BuzzDash with up-to-the-minute stats on what the people want. Cool, huh? Not very scientific, perhaps, but cool nonetheless. It's going to run for 30 days after I posted it, or until May 9th. If you'd like to keep track of the results, just come visit my blog anytime, the poll will remain up until it expires. Or, if I can get it extended, maybe forever.

Just remember, take the results with a grain of salt. The consumer doesn't really know what they want anyway.

Nothing To Do But Move In!

Like new again! Remodeled condo features new kitchen, new flooring, freshly painted interior, new fixtures and much more. Central air, breakfast bar, sliders to deck, new white fencing to be installed in back.