Carnival of Real Estate June 25 2007 Edition

The fabulous blog fest, the Carnival of Real Estate, finds its way to our humble home today. While we came up short on working out a clever theme (Summer Solstice? 4th of July? Yankees vs. Giants? Gay Pride Parade?) for judging this week's mound of entries, we decided at least to categorize them. Of the many, many dozens of entries, these are the four categories into which real estate writing has seemed to self-organize. We'll highlight the best of each group.

First the Technology Category, and our favorite post of the week. Some important thoughts that everyone in this business should be aware of.

1. Jim Cronin at the Real Estate Tomato tackles a deeply nuanced topic that has far reaching implications across the Internet in general. The question of the day in real estate is, Can you blog about other brokers' listings? This innocent little industry-insider topic challenges the legal implications of copyright, the changing nature of competition, and freedom of information. And, if you don't talk to your kids about copyright, who will? Jim tackles the myriad issues admirably, and leaves the mic open for lots of further discussion. Interesting times indeed.

1. Cecelia Hutchings on Athol's RE Agent in CT. What consumers want in listings photos and how to take them. Marvelous insights in this post.
2. Also on the photography topic, Aaron Dickinson explains HDR photography and making your listings photos rock. for cheap.
3. Back on the blogging topic, Mary at RSS Pieces talks about when to worry about duplicate blog content and when not to. I recently spoke with Google's Matt Cutts on the topic. His point is "if you're not actively trying to deceive Google or your readers, you're probably not going to be penalized."

Next the Professionals group. Two really great posts, each tackling a different angle on the nuances of being a real estate professional and marketing real estate these days:

1. In typically impassioned Bloodhound Blog style, Greg Swann tackles Real Estate Licensing, and why it's bad for the business. Read this article. The license, no matter what training it requires, is fundamentally anti-intelligence, anti-experience, anti-due diligence. The license not only deludes consumers into thinking that all agents are the same, it permits newly-minted licensees plausibly to make that very stupid claim.
2. Can you name your listing? If Seth Godin or Guy Kawasaki were in the real estate business, they'd have written this post. And it would have gotten 10,000 readers. Instead, Kimberly Wester has it tucked away on Active Rain and you few hundred Blog Carnival readers will benefit. In Silicon Valley, marketing wisdom says, to name a market is to own it. Kimberly points out that naming your listing helps you understand it's strengths and market it better to buyers. Good stuff.

Finally the Consumer Category. Always full of advice, most of it good, the Consumer category does not fail this week. Two posts in particular focus on the consumer implications of the wrenching changes currently happening for regular folks who just want to buy or sell their homes:

1. On the buy-side, Brian Brady shows us important changes in lending laws. In 2007 lenders will be required to report cash-out refinance transactions. This little change is going to result in very different lender behavior. Look out.
2. On the sell-side, Larry in Cocoa Beach has two properties on the banks of denial river for you. Overpricing properties in a cooling market. Ouch.
   

Bonus! Other fun articles to peruse:

• Cliff Jacobson brings us the list of real estate cliches.
• Kris Berg on the collapse of traditional newspaper business and the cat-husband dynamic.
• Jay Thompson explores blogging for clients. The Sellsius boys want to know who does it best.
• Erik Hersman looks into real estate web traffic, finds it flat. Which means all the growth is going to the individual sites like those contributors to the Carnival of Real Estate. Rock on.

*just kidding about judging Greg's own category. Not kidding about the significance of his presence in this biz.