Mr. D.J. Won’t You Tweet Me a Carnival …

Which Road Should I Take?

The 2008 Olympics are finished and the Democratic National Convention just kicked off. It has been a busy August across the world and especially in the real estate world.

I considered announcing the Carnival winners on Twitter (follow me) but didn’t think I could pull off a 3 a.m. announcement like Senator Obama did on Saturday. Lacking the VAR’s Twitterazi attacking style, I was left to look for other options.

Which left me with a challenge … How to seperate these great posts and create a unique and fun carnival?

I realized that maybe the best Carnival of Real Estate would be a blantantly honest one. We usually have the top “five” mentioned and then you move on to the “others” list. Well, I’m going to rank every post based on its ability to deliver content in a reasonable manner.

So without anymore boring talk from me, the results are …

1. Jay Zuckerman presents What These Three Penalties Can Teach You About Selling Your Home posted at Scenic City Scoop. Stop the presses. One of the last articles I read, Jay went straight to the front of the class for being clever and providing information.
2. David Harris presents Future of the MLS? Are We Ignoring the Elephant in the Room? posted at GeekEstate Blog. I literaly shuddered as I opened this aricle, waiting for another “kill the MLS” aricle that has become cliche to the point of boring. While Tommy is quick to point out issues with the current system, the concept of a “Facebook” style MLS is extremely interesting and makes it a must-read.
3. Dan Green presents What The Surprising Strength Of The U.S. Dollar Is Doing To Mortgage Rates posted at The Mortgage Reports, saying, “Lately, predicting mortgage rates has been as easy as watching the path of U.S. dollar.” Every once in a while an article comes across that makes you stop and have an “Ah-Ha” moment. This was one of those for me. Great job Dan!
4. Jay Thompson presents Ask the Broker: We bought in Maricopa, what can we do? posted at The Phoenix Real Estate Guy. Sometimes it is right there in black and white about what makes agents/brokers great. And this is one of those posts for Jay. He takes the time to address a very tough situation and lays out all the facts for the “reader”, without passing judgement. This is the “new” RE world at work.
5. Dan Melson presents Loan Qualification Standards: Qualifying Rate and Payment posted at Searchlight Crusade. Great straight-forward writing style that makes Dan a must-read mortgage blogger. Another great post on qualifying for a loan.
6. Mike Price presents Scouts of The New Frontier: Social Stewards & Custodians of Community posted at Mike’s Corner. Rock stars of social media … I can see the hotels now! … And Mike makes a great argument for creating a social networking plan. I like the post, but would have preferred to see it as two posts. The first being an explanation of his “rock star” theme and the second being how he is doing his social management.
7. Silicon Valley Blogger presents Beyond Mortgage Payments, The True Cost of Home Ownership posted at The Digerati Life. I always enjoy stopping by Digerati Life and this was no exception, good read with lots of information in a straight-forward way.
8. Lesley Pandey presents Home Remodeling: Hot Colors for Fall posted at Zillow Blog. Remodeling is a big-thing right now. Can’t sell? Make your home look new. Tommy and Leslie do a nice job of highlighting the “hot” colors and providing examples.
9. Karen Goodman presents How to Find a Buyer for Any Home posted at St. Louis Real Estate Insight. Another intriguing post title that just didn’t quite ful-fill my appetite in this Carnival competition. Karen has a great premise but only takes one side to find a buyer for any home — the MLS presense.
10. Matthew Paulson presents Claims That May Increase Your Insurance Costs posted at American Consumer News. When should you turn those bills over to the insurance company? Good question and ACN does a good job of explaining some of the important things that can lead to higher insurance rates.
11. Jim presents $7500 First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. The “tax credit” misnomer is exposed in very straight talk by Jim. I like his approach to an article that could create some difusion.
12. Andrea Davis presents Who Pays What: Negotiated Commissions posted at Real Estate Inside Out. As a full-service real estate agent, I am often defending my commission in the same manner as Andrea. However, I struggle with her assumptions and “blanket” statements regarding other business models, and she doesn’t give me the depth that I was hoping for. 
13. Ned Carey presents What Should Be In Your Library? posted at Baltimore Real Estate Investing Blog. The basic principle of Ned’s article is one that we all need to keep in mind: continuely educating oneself is the only way to improve. I felt that he missed entired segments of new faces, i.e. Jeffrey Gitomer.
14. Debt Freedom Fighter presents Is The Time Right For Refinancing Your Home? posted at Discover Debt Freedom!. Toi asks a question and give us an idea of why you could or should refinance. However, she never answers her question on whether it is the right time to refinance your home.
15. Trevor Mauch presents Private Money Lenders – How to Find, Market To, and Secure Private Money posted at The REI brain. Reading the post was like watching one of those late-night infomercials. You can do this, but I’m going to leave out the most important part of the story until you attend my Webinar or buy my book. I hope it works for him, but not my idea of a good blog post.
16. Ro Troia presents Pearl Street Mall – A People Watching Experience > posted at Blog the Rockies, saying, “the history of pearl street and the happenings in Boulder Colorado”. Interesting article on placeblogging but it lacks the pizaz and depth to be more than a fluff-piece. Not that fluff isn’t needed in every blog, it just doesn’t compete well in a Blog Carnival — trust me 99% of what I write falls in this category.
17. Joanne presents Thinking of Buying Central Oregon Real Estate? posted at Central Oregon Real Estate. Lacks depth that would make me want to buy real estate in Central Oregon.
18. Trevor Mauch presents Top 3 Cities For The Most Affordable Real Estate posted at The REI Brain. No depth and a complete lack of concern about actually saying something in this post. Plus, I’m confused by the selection of cities. Where did the information come from? Why these three? Youngstown, Ohio (according to city-data.com) has a median sales price between $80,000 – $90,000. Why is it not on the list? Was very excited about topic, but disapointed with execution.
19. Carl Ringwall presents Add A Shopping Cart To Moodle [E-Course] posted at Data SystemsPlus. No information, just a demo video. Waste of three minutes to read.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of real estate using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Photograph by Renaude Hatsedakis used via license of Stock.xchng.

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