Friday update – What works for real estate books and blogs

Happy New Year.

What works for real estate books and blogsI’m going to continue with my Friday real estate updates this year. I like getting it all down here, seeing for myself what (if anything) I’ve accomplished for myself and for my clients over the past week. I start this blog post that way and then I have to say that there is not much new. The real estate business is the slowest over the christmas holidays. Always is. This year’s no different.

Let’s start with Happy New Year. The holidays are not officially over – they’re not over until the kids go back to school – but already we are back to work, we planned out our work, made our resolutions, we’ve cleaned out our email in boxes. We are ready to go.

I noticed that already this week there have been a couple of homes relisted for sale. In one case, our out of town clients went through it and liked it, but it was the right house in the wrong neighbourhood. (It was tragically overpriced as well). I’m really hoping we can find something for these guys. Typically, there is a small flood of new listings spilling over the dam of year end, right after the holidays as no one had the inclination to list after December 21st.

I used a good chunk of time over the break to do the fourth edit of the book – 365 Rules about Real Estate. I managed to identify and classify the top 365 rules. The secret of a great book is to cut, cut, and cut. It is an excellent book. It’s concise and honest. I’m going through the fifth edit now and in a few weeks I’m going to turn it over to Alasdair for the final edit. Hopefully that will go well and I won’t have to rewrite the whole damn thing.

I’m still planning on publishing in February – in time for the golden spring market.

I had some time over the holidays to look at my blog. It’s important to have a look at what kind of posts get the most views and what falls flat when readers stay away in droves. I’ve discovered that it really breaks down into two categories:

  1. posts about something going on around Kitchener Waterloo (like a new bridge) and
  2. posts that teach

In the last four months of 2012, my traffic increased by about 50%. I hope I can continue this trend in 2013.

Finally, since my last update I started a new series – the 365 Rules about Real Estate. Everyday I am going to post one rule.

I’m also continuing my series “The definitive guide to Kitchener Waterloo schools, homes and neighborhoods”. Last week we took a look at the most popular neighborhood in Waterloo.

And since there is some confusion about private sellers and the MLS I wrote a post titled “Can a private seller list their home on the MLS”.

That’s it. That’s all.

 

 

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