The beginnings of that idea can now be found at Roofable (www.roofable.com), a consumer-focused real estate blog for Orlando. Roofable is my attempt to create a rooftop view of Orlando’s real estate market, trends and neighborhoods.

If you’re in Orlando and have some thoughts, gossip or tips on real estate in our area – send it in to me at tips at roofable dot com!

Starting this new independent blog comes at a time where I’m also handing off the reigns of this blog (Realty Thoughts) to Damian Scott, president of eppraisal.com, and Allison Jordan, another member of the eppraisal.com team. I will continue to contribute here from time-to-time, but look for more from Damian and Allison than me.

Well, Matt Heaton and Jonathan Washburn have rolled out an advertising platform for their system. For a minimum of $10/per campaign you can start putting up impression-based ads on the ActiveRain network. Your campaign can be targeted at specific pages on our site, specific user groups, members or non-members, regional areas (state, county, city), or all users on all pages.

Other items of note:

1. The minimum campaign budget is $10
2. Ads have SEO value – Search engines walking the site they will see your ad as normal content.
3. You can choose to have your ad displayed only 5 times to a particular user session or choose to have it be unlimited
4. You can stop/start your ad at anytime and update your bids whenever you wish

The SEO Link Problem

[Update: this has since been changed/fixed on ActiveRain]

I would like to bring up one little point – bullet number 2 in particular. I’d be careful of claiming that at this point in time. You see, I follow some of the conversations on SEO, and I know that Matt Cutts has stated Google’s position on any type of sponsored links to be expressly tagged or mentioned as “sponsored” somehow.

Now Google doesn’t own the internet, nor have they been anointed as the “high priests of what you’re allowed to do online”. However, they do control a lot of SEO traffic – the lion’s share, so that allows them to be the big bully if they so choose. Basically, I’d be cautious of making that SEO claim, since all it takes is one little algorithm adustment to add make ActiveRain links be devalued as much as PayPerPost and Text Link Ads (which they’ve done).

In Summary
Okay, besides all that, I still think it’s a great platform for advertisers who have something to sell to real estate professionals. Smart marketers will do more than just advertising here, they will get in on their conversations and prove their value.

Just out through our eppraisal.com Labs, eppraisal Mobile is an easy way to access property valuations while on the road. Simply text an address to 972-413-9622 or to values@eppraisal.com (in the subject line), and eppraisal.com will respond with an estimated value range of the property.

By texting the street address, city and state, eppraisal.com will respond with an estimated value range for the property. More information about the property, neighborhood, or connections to local real estate professionals can be gained by visiting www.eppraisal.com.

Let us know what you think!

• You know your property will be on the market for a long time
• The property is exquisite and needs to be showcased properly – not in some pre-formatted real estate brokerage site
• The domain is part of the sale – the new owner gets the domain as well as the house

It’s Going to be on the Market for a Long Time
You’ll likely list the property in all of the traditional ways, but since you know the property will not be sold soon it’s worth the investment of creating a special site for it. You probably want to make sure that your property isn’t buried and lost in a sea of other listings over time as well, which makes perfect sense for large or expensive property types.

I came across a great example of this recently “230+ Acres of Prime Connecticut Real Estate” has it’s own website. The designer of the website mentioned the reasoning behind his client coming to him:

The site owner figures the property being sold — 230+ Acres in Connecticut — will be on the market for a while. At only $1.5 million, though, I suspect it’ll sell in a flash. It’s a very nice piece of prime real estate. In any case the owner wanted the site to be highly indexed so hopefully it will be. The tools are in place.

Showcase High-end Properties Better
If you’re selling a piece of property for a lot of money, a case can be made that spending some money on a really well designed website can make you stand out, be noticed and shared more easily.

The Villa Pelican beachfront property in Montecito, California is amazing. With 8 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, great grounds and neighbors and a view to die for, it’s worth making sure people can really see and enjoy it. Here it is listed at LuxuryRealEstate.com, and here is a link the Villa Pelican specific website created for the property. See the difference? For a house selling for $34,000,000 it probably makes sense to have a good looking site for it specifically.

The Domain (if it’s a good one) Becomes Part of the Value
Realtors can start thinking of including the domain as part of the package. If it’s a well done website that showcases the property well, then it’s an asset. When the new owners want to show people what they just bought, or when they decide to sell it themselves, they now have a way to do that more easily.

Jonathan Dalton reflects on the state of the industry. In What Have We Taught Our Clients?, he covers the sins of perception that real estate agents are propagating across the country.

We have taught our clients that agents are driving the buying process. We’re not. Yes, an agent will send properties to his or her buyers. But they’ll likely receive as many or more in return. Why? Because there’s little need for the middleman when it comes to searching for homes. Our role as agents has changed – finding the home is the easy part. Negotiating the contract all the way through to the closing is where our expertise comes into play.

Lani Anglin writes a fun rant titled, Obsession With Youth? I Think Not!, where she berates a letter writer to REALTOR magazine.

I object to the letter because those who have been successful in the corporate world that haven’t hit their 30th birthday SHOULD be celebrated. As a member of that group, I will tell you that my biggest professional obstacle is NOT my sex, my background or my vocabulary level- it is my age.

Patrick Kapowich, of Silicon Valley Broker, discusses How Can Brokers Protect Themselves From Agent Promotion?

My concern was the same then as it is now: Will agents and/or brokers answer online questions outside their areas of expertise? (As many do off-line) – They did. Which, by the way, is strictly prohibited.

Benn Rosales reminds us about self-fulfilling prophecies in Mortgage Drama, Real Estate Bubble, Tech Crash, Dotcom Disaster.

As some (including myself) try to remain positive around the blog-o-whatever about the mortgage industry, there are already those who cannot stop warning and passing along their own fears. It is already preordained that we will have a mortgage meltdown because the virus of words is already spreading.

Craig Schiller, of Home Staging, talks about the values of staging a home in Are Vacant Homes Black Holes That Suck the Life Out of their Own Sales?

…a vacant house will be more difficult to sell then a furnished home. A buyers market will only make it even more difficult for a seller to sell for there are more than enough homes to choose from.

Kevin Boer on The Innovator’s Dilemma In Real Estate: Beware Of That Redfin Swimming Just Below You, where he applies lessons from Harvard’s Clayton Christensen on how low-cost competitors move up the value chain to real estate brokerage.

If the new entrant succeeds, it starts to take market share from the incumbents, who finally wake up — often too late — and discover that the “cheap, undesirable” part of the market is much larger than they previously thought.

Regardless, it’s still enjoyable to watch the trending continue upwards for eppraisal.com. We’ve had a lot more room to grow than the others, true, but we’re starting to catch up. The great part is that our burn rate is much lower than everyone else. In fact, our company is entirely profitable on it’s own, thereby allowing us to continue to grow eppraisal.com at a slower pace knowing that we’ll be here for the long haul.