I am one of the first people to express my opinion that the true value of a real estate blog lies not in search engine potential (which is still extremely postive) but that the blogosphere and millions of readers present in the blogosphere will offer the true value to any real estate agent. However….

Lets take a look at Local Search. Local Search is something that it is crucial for real estate agents, in fact it is all that any real estate agent really should care about. What is local search? It is the act of searching for anything based on location. For example if someone searches for real estate then they are probably going to search for a geographical area, a neighborhood, a geographic region, and maybe even a local nickname for those areas… Those people searching in that way are qualified leads doing research online, exactly who a realtor needs to reach first. A Professional real estate blog marketing campaign is a local search magnet.

As a real estate agent posts and writes about his areas of coverage he or she is becoming more relevant with each post in the eyes of the engine to all local searches in the area and showcasing to potential clients their knowledge of real estate in their area. Realtors blogging in the right way, with the right system, and information are beginning to dominate true local search terms, this trend is growing and is even more prominent as people are adding the word “blog” to their search to get even more relevant search results.

Do you want local search results? Real Estate Blog Marketing will design a blog marketing campaign to help you dominate local search for your area. Contact us for more information.

I took at look at the Yahoo real estate section today, and used their home finder tool. You enter the city or zip code that you are interested in, and you are presented with a wide array of information. A search for Raleigh returned numbers and median prices of available new homes, real estate classifieds and foreclosures along with price changes from the previous month. You can also see the pricing trends for the previous twelve months along with mortgage information and an interactive map displaying available listings. It is a very handy and useful tool.
It is very easy for real estate agents to compete with this Yahoo tool.  The Secret is  bringing a more personal touch to their marketing. Selling houses is not about stats and numbers, it’s about personal relationships and interaction. A real estate blog helps realtors level the playing field with these larger entities, and allows the realtor to appeal to buyers on a more personal level with insider knowledge and real estate podcasts.

We get asked often “what should I write about in my blog? ” and “Where would I get Ideas ?” Below is what anyone in any area might write about in their real estate blog. Any event that is an added value to living in that particular region, city, state etc…is a valid blog post. Real Estate Blog marketing is about sales and marketing, and part of sales and marketing is showing off the reasons a consumer would want to work with you, or buy your product… Below is one reason you might want to buy a house in Cary North Carolina, or in Regency Park in Cary North Carolina. Just one of many reasons that Cary Real Estate is some of the most sought after real estate in the Triangle area of North Carolina.

Pops In the Park in Cary North Carolina

An annual event in Cary North Carlina, Pops in the park features the North Carolina Symphony and finishes off the night with an impressive firewoks show over the lake at Regency park. Regency Park in addition to being the home of the Cary Amphitheater is also is one of the many nice neighborhoods in Cary.

Pops in the park happens once a year and is free to all. It’s a relaxing evening listening to the NC Symphony Free of Charge.

Cary Living at its best.

InvestmentRiches.com and Signil Wealth Consulting Group announced that they are hosting first Investor Summit 2007 - Real Estate Market Forecast in Las Vegas, NV, November 10-12, 2006.    The summit will guide investors toward the top real estate markets in 2007 and will offer the attendees advanced analytical techniques for statistical real estate data.   Article…..

The United States isn’t the only country feeling the Real Estate housing decline.  Home sales fell 4% in Montreal during the month of August.  A total of 3,390 home sales were recorded in August compared to 3,519 in August of 05.  Article Source…….

Zillow was in the news again as it stepped up its efforts to attract more ad spend from real estate professionals. The company received an additional $25 million in funding to go along with the $32 million already raised. The site offers free information and tools in the real estate and financial servies areas.

Rich Barton the cofounder and CEO of Zillow was quoted saying “Strong early market response to Zillow has focused us on just how hungry consumers are for real estate tools and information online,”.

This demonstrates to me how high the marketing industry feeels the demand is for online services relating to the real estate market. Obviously Zillow expects advertisers to drop their print campaigns and move the spend into this website. We expect the same thing to happen, but we anticipate the spend not going into directory site, but into blog marketing. Why would you put marketing budget into a site that lists you with hundreds of competitiors, when you can establish your own brand and increase your market share through the use of a real estate blog? The most cost effective way of marketing your company online is with a blog.

Home ownership which peaked at 69.2% in 2004 is showing signs of slowing. The lower rates resulted in high home ownership but with interest rates rising, people are leaning toward rental units once again. Data from apartment industry research firm RealFacts show that second-quarter occupancy rates rose in 28 of the 29 Metropolitan Statistical Areas it covers, and rents increased across each of the 29 metro areas. Article

Home price appreciation during the second quarter of 2006 was at it’s slowest rate since the forth quarter of 1999.  Nationally, home prices increased 10.2% from the second quarter of 2005 to 2006.  The East south central states had the highest home appreciation of 8.3% , while the New England States had the lowest home appreciation of 0.8%  Read more……

I read an interesting article in Classified Intelligence about a study which detailed the way that spending in real estate marketing is moving away from print and towards online. While realtors appear to be advertising more on free sites like Craigslist and Google Base, the main shift in spending was towards realtors personal websites and blogs.

This marks a departure from traditional online marketing channels such as paid search and online newspaper listings, and shows that realtors now realize that with a bit of time and effort they can become highly relevant in natural search and compete with bigger real estate firms.

This merely confirms what we have been saying for the last six months, which is that as a realtor you do not need to spend a lot of your budget on paid search, print, radio or tv. All you need is blog branding. The blog levels the playing field for smaller firms to be able to compete for the dwindling number of home buyers who are looking for something extra and want to work industry leaders.

I read an article the other day that talked about how 20% of marketers were considering using viral marketing to brand their products and increase sales. Viral marketing is where the marketing message touches or resonates with the reader/listener to the point that they will forward your message to others that share the same interests. A great example of this is UTube or Google videos. You see a video that you think is funny and you forward it on to your friends, thus creating a viral effect. People share information that they think is interesting and images, text or audio can very easily be spread across wide groups.

Realtors can take advantage of this with their blog marketing by being original with their writing and podcasts. There was a car commercial in North Carolina with a highly annoying presenter. Most people, when asked about the guy said they did not like him or the way he talked, but they remembered the company and the brand. A lot of real estate success also comes down to successful branding. The more original and memorable you can be with both your writing and podcasting; the more you can stamp personality on the way you relate with people;  the more successful you will be, and the more you can use viral marketing to spread your brand online and offline.