Real Estate Blogs:What are they and how can they help a real estate investor? What are real estate blogs? According to Wikipedia , blogs are dated online written communication on various topics of any subject. Therefore real estate blogs will focus on topics of real estate. The real estate related topics are usually posted periodically-daily, weekly, or whatever time period is convenient for the individual making the entries. The entry is usually written by an individual. The entry may consist of a series of articles collected by or written by the individual making the post. Thus making the information more personal and likely more interesting and useful for others interested in real estate. As I searched many real estate blogs on the internet, I visited a website that contained 50 of the top real estate blogs , and noticed it was divided into eight categories-Appraisals, Real Estate’s Dark Side, Good Reading, Investors, Real Estate News, Site-Specific Blogs, Niche Markets, and The Green Life. Finding Useful Information from Blogs for Real Estate Investor? I randomly decided to select the first blog from the first category, the second blog from the second category, then the third, and so on to see if the randomly selected real estate blogs would have some useful or educational real estate investing information for beginning real estate investors and anyone else in the real estate industry. First Selected Blog from 50 of the Top ... The first category appraisals was described as: Most home buyers want an appraiser who’s been seasoned. These bloggers are there, as they’ve been around a while. I selected the first blog and scanned down the featured articles in the center of the following page. I found an article about apprasiers and learned that the number of lawsuits for appraiser has increased from 1200 to 2000. This would imply more appraisers are making a lot of inaccurate appraisals. This informtion is useful and important because appraisals must be completed before any lending institution or investor will lend money for the purchase of a house. If the company or appraiser is under investigation, you would think twice about hiring them because the results could effect the outcome of the purchase. Knowing this information before hiring an appraiser will save time, money, and the house you intend to purchase. Second Selected Blog from 50 of the Top... Under the category real estate’s dark side, I selected the second blog-Blown Mortgage, which focused on loan modification tips, tools, and articles. Included are credit dispute templates, loan modification financial worksheets, tips to avoid foreclosure, and a credit center linking to important credit resources. Third Selected Blog from 50 of the Top... The next category is titled Good reading and I selected the third blog named Sellsius. There were several links at the top of the page and how we rolled seem to be the most interesting because of the different sub categories-home improvement, marketing, real estate search blogs, and other real estate related information. I liked this blog the least because of the commercial advertising on the right hand side of the page which is almost as big as the text on the other side, so it is very distracting. Fourth Selected Blog from 50 of the Top... The next category is investors so I selected housing derivatives. This site provides reports on 10 cities concerning real estate conducted by Altos. The report tracks the listing price, asking price, days on the market, and the percent change over several months. This information is useful for buyers, sellers, but may be very dry reading for the average person. Fifth Selected Blog from 50 of the Top... The next category is real estate news, so I selected realty times. The page opens with a series of videos on different topics. The TV looking picture is on the side of the page and can be stopped or another selection can be made. This video presentation made the usual statistical information more interesting. In the middle of the page are marketing condition links for each state. I selected Maryland and found a library of advice for buyers, sellers, investors, homeowners, borrowers, and real estate agents to name a few. Sixth Selected Blog from 50 of the Top... Site-specific blogs is the next category, and I selected urban trekker. The first article on this site compared urban with suburban living using pictures from DC and Arlington. The articles underneath discuss environmental and transportation issues. Both of these topics can effect a buyer’s decision to buy a home in a particular area. Seventh Selected Blog from 50 of the Top... The next category was niche markets. I peeked at a couple and decided on real sage advice. The first article was about permits. There were several interesting articles, but the articles I found the most interesting was related to senior housing and seniors on the Internet. The article linked to a senior relocation website: . Eighth Selected Blog from 50 of the Top... The last topic was title the green life. I’m not really interested in this topic so I scanned each blog for something that interested me. The first link was about NYC, on the second link I saw an article about energy efficient robots that helped the elderly, in the third link I found nine green home projects to do, in the fourth I found an article about green investments, the fifth wasn’t available, and the sixth had an article about Microsoft and Google exchanging notes about how to look at energy management market (video).
The Real Estate Bloggers The Real Estate Bloggers listed articles on different topics in alphabetical order from affordable housing to real estate blogs, to zillow. The topics were easy to see and locate because they were in the middle of the page. I found an article that interest me title “Collection Agencies Buying Foreclosure Debt”. The article suggests a person in foreclosure should seek out a lawyer to have all parties waive their right to collect in the future. Can you imagine someone trying to collect money from a homeowner years after the house went into foreclosure. This could affect future purchases or sales with other investors or the same homeowner. ActiveRain Real Estate Network Activerain was the next blog I visited. This blog contains a social real estate network of over 175,000 real estate professionals. Home buying, home selling, home improvement, mortgage/finance, real estate investing, real estate market, blogs, plus other related real estate resources are available. Joining the community on this social network will provide you the opportunity to connect with like minded individuals that can assist you with your real estate objectives. This site contains more information than just a blog; it’s a network of individuals interested in real estate. There is both a free and paid membership at Active Rain. Future of Real Estate Marketing The future of real estate marketing is the next blog, which contains articles on social media, blogging, a blog content resource list, and tips for a real estate agent's blog. Despite many articles being directed to real estate agents, almost all of the articles were interesting and also applied to professionals in the real estate industry. I found the article with 25 blog content resources to be very valuable. I particular enjoyed having access to the online newspaper link of different newspaper from around the world. Real Estate Blogs Directory Of Real Estate Industry Blogs The next site visited, real-estate-blogs.com , consisted of a directory of real estate blogs and blog sites of industries affiliated with and serving the real estate industry from around the country. There are home inspection blogs, mortgage blogs, property appraisal blogs, property insurance blogs, plus Canada, USA, and International real estate agents blogs, real estate web design blogs, and other real estate industry blog. You also have an opportunity to add your blog if you provide a link on your site to their blog. Blog Flux Topsites The next blog, topsites.blogflux.com/real-estate , also allows you to submit your blog on their site. There are over 140, 000 blogs and over 200,000 registered users. At first I had trouble finding the real estate blogs, but after I clicked on the yellow select blogflux services in the top left corner, then I selected the blog directory, followed by selecting real estate under the letter r, then I found the real estate blogs. There are many different blog categories from different locations around the world.
As you can see the real estate blogs from above contain something of value on a wide variety of categories for the beginning real estate investor as well as anyone in the real estate industry. For more real estate blogs see additional real estate blogs below.
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