Writing a blog in the past was a simple proposition. You found something interesting and wrote your opinion of it. Real estate blogs are all over the landscape now. Some are written by vendors, Realtors, and just plain old bloggers like myself. That is a great thing.

But like anything else in life, there are risks involved. the Insurance Journal has come up with some of the biggest risks that bloggers face and I thought I would share with your some of my favorites.

• Do readers consider the blog a credible source of information and depend on it for up-to-date information (a matter of opinion that can be judged based on analytics and comments)?
• Is information in the blog accurate or is the blog rife with mistakes and misstatements?
• Have facts been checked (as required by due diligence standards) or have they simply been accepted as heard or read elsewhere without further verification?
• Have facts been attributed to the original sources?
• Are information sources reliable?
• Are rumors and gossip printed as fact?
• Are opinions labeled as such?
• Are comments in news and opinion pieces fair and based in fact or could they be considered malicious, libelous or defamatory? via Insurance Journal

The liability of blogging is something I have thought about, often! One one of my other sites that I no longer run, we would have people threatening us with lawsuits quite regularly and even had a small island country threaten us with lawsuits. (The site Scared Monkeys was instrumental in covering the disappearance of Natalee Holloway on the island of Aruba. We set new ground on citizen journalism and interaction with blogs, but that is another story for another day.)

So when I write about real estate I do one of two things:

• I write something that is very clearly my opinion, or
• I append my post with the original source.

That is why on most posts I have a paragraph of the original article. It is not for the search engine optimization benefits, it is so if the original source changes over time, I have a record and so does any litigator.

Corrections happen and I do not have the time to go back and check sources for all of the 2,500 posts I have done. If there is an error in the source and I have shown the error it allows the aggrieved party to contact me and correct the record. Simple, professional, and effective, and does a good job of CYA…

Real estate agents, continue to blog and enjoy it, but remember where the line is. You all live in a world of very tightly controlled ethics as proscribed by your local boards and the National Association of Realtors. As some one who blogs about real estate I live under a different code than a Realtor that blogs. What I can do can end up getting you in a great deal of trouble if you are not careful.

So have fun, if you are writing on something based upon someone else’s work, please give attribution. If you are writing under your own opinion, think of how the target will feel and make sure that you have created a defensible argument based upon fact, not malice.

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Post from: The Real Estate Bloggers

Questions To Ask Before You Blog

The Apple Iphone 3G rollout went poorly this weekend, they had technical problems that drove some of their most ardent fans up the wall and tarnished the Apple brand in the process.

Seth Godin, one of the great thinkers we have today, wrote a great post on how to handle scarcity using some of the Apple issues for fodder. It got me to thinking about how real estate agents handle scarcity.

And I can hear you now, Tom, scarcity, real estate. Don’t you know that we have millions of excess homes? Are you daft man?

But real estate has scarcity. If there are too many buyers, we have too few homes. Prices run rampant and irrational exuberance ensues.

And when we have too many homes, we have too few buyers. Scarcity is now on the buyers side. If I was an agent, I would take this principle by Seth to heart.

Principle 3: Treat different customers differently. Apple, for example, knows how to contact every single existing customer. Why not offer VIP status to big spenders? Or to those that make a lot of calls? Let them cut the line. It’s not fair? What’s fair mean? I can’t think of anything more fair than treating the people who treat you well, better. via Seth’s Blog

When buyers are plentiful, treat the sellers like gold. When buyers are scarce, treat them like gold.

So what are you to do if you are a listing agent? My best advice is to treat the buyers like gold also, for the sellers sake.

Go the extra yard with well qualified buyers coming to look. Get their early, find out what they like to drink (soda, coffee, tea) and have a snack laid out in the kitchen for them. Let them sit at the table and feel like it is their home.

Follow up extra hard with the well qualified buyers agent making sure they are valued. They took the time after doing their research to come see your listing in a market saturated with other listings, you go out of your way.

Spend a little extra developing a target buyer and build your marketing for that type of person. Instead of generic one size fits all marketing, find out the demographics and build the marketing for those people. For example, is it a family house you are listing? Talk to the homeowner and get some of the neighborhood kids to come play on the swing set, or go to the local park and take a picture of kids playing. You will be amazed at the subliminal message being sent.

But do not ever believe that you are marketing in the same environment as 10 years ago. You need to micro target the buyers and when you get one that fits the profile go all out to show that they are appreciated.

Face it, they took time out of their lives to come see a home you are listing and mostly likely drove by 10 other homes to get there.

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Post from: The Real Estate Bloggers

How Real Estate Agents Can Manage Scarcity For Success

Welcome California to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has announced that he is forcing Allstate to drop it’s homeowner insurance rates 28.5% so that the poor suffering people of California can pay their other bills. The average rate for Allstate customers in the state will now be $600.

And you know what, he has the power to do it. Of course with the wildfires and earthquakes it makes no sense to insure homes in the great state of California at such low rates so Allstate has stopped writing policies in the state.

And you know that the level of service the remain 850,000 customers will get will be minimal along with cancellations based upon the slightest reason.

Face it, why would you want to participate, even if it is the largest state, when the government stacks the deck against you. Allstate can not say to their customers, well the state lowered our income 28 percent so we will lower our coverage the same amount, can they?

Instead they will leave, the next disaster will have a bunch of underfunded, shallow pocket insurers in California who will be bankrupt the day after the disaster, and the population will wonder why they are getting screwed.

All I can say is when this happens, call your esteemed Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Of course he will be all over the television screaming for tighter regulation of the insurance companies, populist morons like him do that all the time, when the suffering should be laid upon his doorstep.

When government creates an environment that honest businesses can not succeed, all that is left are the crooks and the thieves. Oh, and the politicians ducking for cover.

Poizner’s legal order, signed Tuesday, rejects Allstate’s request for a 9.3% increase in its homeowners insurance rates, and, instead, instructs the company to reduce its existing premiums by 28.5%. “In today’s sputtering economic environment, people need all the help they can get just to pay the bills,” Poizner said. “That’s why I’m pleased to order this tremendous rate cut.”

According to the Department of Insurance, the reduction should drop average Allstate premiums to around $600 a year. The new rates will take effect July 28.

The insurer will comply with the commissioner’s order, Allstate spokesman Peter DeMarco said. “We are reviewing the order in detail and communicating with the department about the process for adjusting the rates of our 850,000 homeowners policyholders in the state.” via The LA Times

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Post from: The Real Estate Bloggers

California Insurance Commissioner Drops Allstates Homeowner Rates 28.5%

The housing bill going through Congress that is offering a 300 billion dollar safety cushion to t