Brokers in Blogsville

It's Friday morning and John Keith of the Boston Real Estate Blog is sitting on a nice scoop: A rental agency in town has been caught using a professional mailing list to try to poach agents from its competitors.

That's a definite no-no, Keith explained in his post, titled "How to annoy just about everyone."

Over at condoDomain.com, another Boston-based real estate blog, Anthony Longo is writing about a warning issued by the Massachusetts Multiple Listing Service about using a new feature from website Zillow.com, which has emerged as an industry rival.

Who cares? You might be surprised how many people do.

As in other industries, the use of blogs has exploded in the real estate sector in the last two years -- as many as 750 according to an informal tally by Robert Melton, a real estate blogger in Pittsburgh.

The blogs combine elements of standard Web pages and the age-old practice of journal writing, and they're pulling back the curtains on an industry that many consumers don't know much about.

No mere fad, the blogs are also changing the dynamics that have dominated home buying and selling for generations. They've allowed some agents to break away from large brokerages and turned knowledge and media savvy, rather than personal connections, into the coin of the realm for ambitious brokers.

Blog authors range from the obvious -- real estate brokers and loan officers -- to technology experts, court officials, even homeowners and critics who use the Web to counter what they contend are the self-serving statements and hype of industry members . Broadly, real estate blogs offer a wealth of information on local or national trends, tips for potential buyers, and reams of industry gossip. In a few cases, the blogs have turned their authors into demi-celebrities in the world of tech-savvy real estate junkies.

But for brokers in particular, a blog has become a key way to get their voices heard above the din of agents clamoring for business. These tech-savvy brokers find that, beyond having a place from which to mouth off, the blog gives them a powerful direct connection with buyers and sellers; some say they are now getting steady business from readers who turn into customers.

This "lead generation" wasn't the reason Keith started his blog, bostonreb.com, in 2005, but it has helped keep it going.

"Initially I didn't think about it as a business," Keith said. "I wanted to write so I could get people's opinions. I thought that it would be a good way to create communications between buyers, sellers, and me."

Working at the time for an agency in the South End, Keith was frustrated by the traditional modern marketing methods available to real estate brokers: newspaper advertisements, a web site, and other online services such as Google.com. The newspaper ads cost around $200 each. Buying a keyword that would display a link to his Web page alongside search results on Google ran him another $300 a month, Keith said.

"There wasn't a lot of activity. I'd get, maybe, one lead a month from Google -- not one closing, mind you. Maybe I'd get a closing every two or three months," he said.

But within months of launching his blog, Keith noticed business picked up, and attributed it to his blog. The reason? Keith's diligent blog entries -- up to three or four a day -- were pushing the magic buttons of search engine Google, which ranked Keith's blog near the top of results for searches such as "Boston real estate."

Keith estimated he gets one real estate sale a month from blog-generated leads. The cost to him: around $30 a month for website hosting fees, plus time and effort. Not a bad return on investment, especially since his costs are offset by revenue from Google-generated ads on his blog.

Keith has also noticed something else from his blog, about the type of customers it draws: first-time home buyers, younger clients who are more conditioned to using the Internet first to shop. Couples relocating to Boston from other cities also started e-mailing and calling him after reading his blog.

Like many real estate blogs, Keith's site contains an intense log of local news -- it has three postings about web site Redfin's launch in Boston last week, for example -- and musings on the topics of the day.

One contained Keith's thoughts on Governor Deval Patrick's efforts to curb the number of foreclosures among borrowers of subprime mortgages.

"This doesn't help solve one of the primary problems -- people took out loans they couldn't afford to pay. You might call it willful ignorance. Or, greed. It's what got us into this mess, not lender fraud," Keith wrote, in one of the more candid public observations made in recent weeks about the foreclosure matter.

Such straight talk also helps broker-bloggers distinguish themselves, by creating a memorable voice that isn't always just talking about sell, sell, sell, according to Longo, the chief executive of condoDomain.com

"Realtors can claim themselves to be experts very easily with some research and passion, then stick it up for free on a blog and gain some market share," he said.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum are sites such as thehousingbubbleblog.com, and Bostonbubble.com, which, as their names suggests, dedicate commentary and information to what its hosts and supporters believe are overpriced real estate markets, and the consequences of such high housing costs. Contributors routinely lampoon and otherwise pick apart the typically rosy utterances of real estate industry leaders, and the language on such sites is often blunt.

Oftentimes the blogs offer up basic advice and reminders of what consumers should be aware of, and wary of, while shopping. For example, attorney Stephen Meltzer in Framingham (meltzer.blogs.com) runs a blog on real estate-focused legal news, including major court rulings. Among his recent postings: a Massachusetts Appeals Court ruling that found offers to purchase real estate legally enforceable -- a common point of contention in real estate deals that fall through.

Though there are hundreds of sites devoted to real estate around the country, many are modest, or refreshed infrequently, or merely serve as a listing and search service dressed up with some recent industry news. Longo said the community of dedicated real estate bloggers is small -- no more than 40 or 50 nationally. It includes other top bloggers, such as Joel Burslem, who writes futureofrealestatemarketing.com, Brad Inman of the Inman News blog, and Pat Kitano at Transparent Real Estate.

"It's not for everybody. It's not for every agent," said Burslem, who lives in Portland, Ore . "You've got to be willing to use the power of [blogs]. A single, static website isn't interesting to consumers or to search engines. "

That doesn't mean bloggers have to post every day, but it does mean they have to be able to create what Burslem calls a conversation with readers.

The small community is on the verge of getting big quickly, thanks to new sites that make it easy for novices to blog about real estate. For example, Activerain.com hosts a popular online, social networking environment and blogging platform for real estate professionals, with different sections devoted to blogs by agents from ReMax and Century 21, and discussion groups offering tips and tricks for successful online promotions.

An Activerain.com discussion forum on blogging and search engine optimization counts more than 600 subscribers, while another group, "Project Blogger," teams veteran and rookie real estate bloggers in a contest to develop successful real estate blogs.

Another service is Bringtheblog.com, which Dan Green, a Chicago mortgage specialist, co founded as a blogger-for-hire service for real estate professionals.

"We take the pressure off people who have all the excuses," Green said. "We'll write every day and you can focus on selling a home or helping people with mortgages or whatever interests you."

Some veteran bloggers caution that success is less about technical prowess, and more about instinct and discipline, personality and voice. Search engines such as Google favor blogs that are well maintained and updated frequently. Moreover, the most popular entries often have nothing to do with the blog's focus.

Teresa Boardman, a broker in St. Paul, who hosts Stpaulrealestateblog.com and works with Dan Green, said her "Friday Fun" posts -- quirky stories or observations that rarely relate to real estate -- are her biggest draw. She also makes it a point to write against the tide when big news breaks.

"If one day everyone is writing about Zillow, I won't write about Zillow," she said.

Most important: don't advertise property listings on your blog.

"It'll just make it look like 80 million other real estate websites, and look how popular most of those are," she said.

Moreover, the quality of information is key, said Jim Cronin, a real estate blogger who writes TheRealEstateTomato.com and runs a consulting service in Sacramento for aspiring agent-bloggers.

"Consumers are interested in topics that deal with their concerns. 'Are home values in Orleans slumping?' or they're asking 'What if I live on a cliff and its eroding a bit?' "

Despite the wealth of information on the Internet, there's precious little with local context like that, which is why blogs have been so popular, Cronin said.