And The Winner Is …

Welcome to the 50th edition of the Carnival of Real Estate, and it is an honor to host this week’s carnival at Sadie’s Take on Delaware.The 50th edition is a special honor and with 19 entries, it was a tough task to pick a winner – or even to come up with a “theme”.

Golf has been a dominating discussion the past month or so in central Ohio with two PGA events occurring — the Memorial Tournament and this week a Nationwide event — in the area over that span. My favorite event on the PGA tour is the World Golf Champions – Accenture Match-Play Championship and I thought in honor of the 50th edition of the Carnival of Real Estate we’d take the match-play challenge.

The Tournament Bracket

Jeff Kempe and John Everat had a great battle for the championship, and Kempe was as smooth at Tiger Woods on Sunday to claim the championship. Click on “read more” to get the full-field run-down for this week’s Carnival.

With 19 entries we had to get a little creative in creating the bracket, all (but one) entries were plugged into random spots, which makes this a little more challenging than the “true” match play where players are seeded based on their abilities (as determined by past experiences). I wanted to seed but realized that just getting this to come out would be tough-enough. The only person to have a pre-set ”bye” was Broker Bryant in honor of his being named the winner of the 49th Carnival of Real Estate as hosted by ValleyMarket.

There were a few “multiple” entries and as a match-play event that would have been way too confusing, so I chose the first entry from those contestants.

First Round 

• Transparent Real Estate’s Pat Kitano vs. Zillow’s Blog’s Diane Truman: Zillow’s “Ka-Ching! Former Hearst Home Up for $165,000,000” is a classic look at a unique listing, while Transparent RE’s “Web 2.0 is Inevitable, Despite the Grumbling” is a high-tech look at the new world of real estate. Truman’s article is quite informative — can you imagine that with 20 percent down and 6.75 percent interest the payment on just the house would be more than $850,000 per month — and is a fun post. As a professional writer for 15 years, Kitano’s article on the evolution of Web 2.0 is a great look at the future of information moving both directions rather than a single way. Winner: Truman. Truman’s article was about real estate, Kitano’s was a technical story on a real estate blog, so the edge goes to Truman.
• Central Denver’s Blog’s Jennifer Steck vs. Arizona Mortgage Guru’s Shailesh Ghimire: Steck’s ”Seven Ways to Tackle the Garage” is great “how to” article on the best way for those of us that no-longer have a garage, but rather another closet, to reclaim the garage. Ghimire’s “There’s More to Apple Pie Than Just the Apple“ takes a look at how important it is to keep in mind that the interest rate is part of the equation, but not the only piece of the pie. Winner: Steck. I liked Steck’s writing style and felt that she followed through on the post better than Ghimire.
• Bloodhound Blog’s Jeff Kempe vs. Real Estate Undressed’s Larry Cragun: If someone wants to accuse me of not being random, this is the battle I’ll point too — with two heavyweights squaring off in a first round. ”The Imperative of Divorced Commissions, Part 2” is Kempe’s entry and it is exactly what you expect from the Bloodhound Blog — a well thought out and complete entry, yet leaving enough room to be thought provoking. Cragun countered with “So You Want To See All The Listings On One Site Do You?” which highlights the battle for buyers on Internet listings and gives the reader a guide of how things happen. Winner: Kempe. Wish I could have picked both of them, but Kempe’s article took that next step to get the victory.

Second Round

• Truman vs. Broker Bryant’s Real Estate Ramblings’ Broker Bryant: Not one to rest on his laurels, Bryant brings “You Want My Seller to Do What?” to this week’s carnival. Broker is a smooth operator and it is why he has become a successful real estate agent from modest beginnings. And it is reactions to situations like this that allow us a window into his ”world” and how he’s done it. Truman’s fun entry on the $165,000,000 house gave us a glimpse into the world of super-wealthy. Winner: Broker. Broker’s entry overwhelmed Truman’s entry, and left me wondering if anyone would consider a $170,000,000 offer on the property…
• Searchlight Crusade’s Dan Melson vs. vFlyer Blog’s Oliver Muoto: Melson’s “Larger Loan Amounts: Tighter Rules for Lending” is a run-down on loan options for those that “earn more than the average bear” and want to buy a new home. While, Muoto counters with “Online Real Estate Advertising – Are You Doing Any?” and points out that online real estate advertising is expected to hit $3 billion by 2010. Winner: Muoto. This was a tougher competition than I expected and the edge went to Muoto because of the uniqueness of his post. 
• Steck vs. 3 Ocean’s Real Estate’s Kevin Boer: Steck brings her garage cleaning tips to the second round to battle Boer’s “What’s the Difference Between ‘Real’ and ‘Personal’ Property? How About $45,000“. Boer’s entry discusses personal property – in this case $50,000 – that was found in the floorboards of a home on the market. Winner: Boer. Steck did a nice job with her entry, however the thought-provoking post by Boer gave Boer the edge.
• A Peek Inside John’s Head’s John Everat vs. Tucson Real Estate Blog’s Michael Krotchie. “Sound Market Advice in an UnSound Market” is Everat’s entry and he discusses the different options that sellers in a tough market have. Krotchie’s ”ARMageddon Looms … Will You Be Ready?” is a look at the adjustable rate mortgage crisis in Arizona. Winner: Everat. He provides answers to what sellers can do to get out of their homes, we need more answers and less “statements” of the problem.
• WebHomeUSA Blog’s Cliff Jacobson vs. Kempe. Kempe’s “The Divorced Commissions” goes up against Jacobson’s “Mr. Barton’s Neighborhood: Vertical or Portal“. Jacobson points out changes that Zillow is bringing up on the industry and really gives Kempe a battle. Winner: Kempe. These two both offered very strong content, so I fell back on Kempe’s more polished writing style for the victory.
• Charleston Real Estate Blog’s Howard Arnoff vs. Real Estate Entropy’s Brian Miller: Arnoff’s “Relist, Refresh, Deceive” is a reactionary post to real estate agents that still don’t think the industry should be transparent. “Can You Love a Telemarketer” is Miller’s entry and its a feel-good piece on how our words affect all those around us – even telemarketers. Winner – Miller. I liked the look of Miller’s blog and how he told a story that maybe wasn’t overly real estate connected, but worked it well into his blog.
• Phoenix Real Estate Blog’s Jay Thompson vs. John Barker’sMortgage Blog. Barker tackles seller’s paying the buyer’s mortgage in “Payment Abadements? What the Heck is It?” While Thompson brings “One Consumer’s Perspective” to the table and he “reads between the e-mail lines” on a consumer’s e-mail. Winner: Barker. The article was straight-forward and added value to the REALTOR(R) readers and it slips past Thompson’s article.
•  A Better Morgage’s Tim Abbott vs. Miamism’s Ines Hegedus-Garcia. Abbott’s “Credit Scoring 101” is — shocker — an outline of how the credit bureaus determine credit for customers. “Real Estate Emotions” is put up by Hegedus-Garcia to battle Abbott and it focuses on the idea that bringing some emotion into  a transaction can make it go smoother for the buyer and the seller. Winner: Hegedus-Garcia. I like the style of Miamism and the way Hegedus-Garcia takes on the real estate community’s belief of “no emotion” in the transaction.

Quarterfinals

• Bryant vs. Muoto. Winner – Bryant. Muoto came to play this week with some hard-hitting analysis on Google Ad Words and search marketing, however Broker’s post just had a stronger voice and squeaked past for the victory.
• Boer vs. Everat. Winner – Everat. This was a tough battle, but I took Everat’s straight-forward approach over Boer’s superb writing style.
• Kempe vs. Miller. Winner - Kempe. Fun and light versus serious and strong. In this case, Kempe’s serious and strong rules the day.
• Hegedus-Garcia vs. Barker. Winner: Barker. I like the efforts of Hegedus-Garcia, however Barker’s entry was written a little stronger and survived the challenge.

Semifinals

• Byant vs. Everat. Winner – Everat. Look at Everat’s quarterfinal battle and we could simply say, ditto. Bryant’s entry was much more polished, but Everat’s straight-forward approach gets him the victory.
• Kempe vs. Barker. Winner – Kempe. Two technical posts square off and it comes down to the writing style and again, Kempe claims the victory.

 Finals

• Everat vs. Kempe. Winner: Kempe. It was like to heavy-weights lining up for a classic battle. And while Everat and Kempe were even through the front-nine, Kempe distanced himself on the back-nine with a Tigeresque charge. 

Congratulations to Mr. Jeff Kempe for winning the match-play champsionships of this year’s carnival.  

Thanks for visiting this week’s Carnival, there were a lot of great entries in this week’s carnival. Submit your entry for the 51st-edition of the Carnival of Real Estate which will be hosted by the Rain City Guide.

Top photo taken by Brian Baughand used courtesy of Stock.xchng license. Bottom photo taken by Benjamin Earwicker and used courtesy of Stock.xchng license.

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