Is your blog educating others about your market? Mine apparently is!

I would like to share some anecdotal evidence with you about the power of our ActiveRain blogs to educate not only consumers who read our posts, but also our friends and fellow agents around the country. 

I was on the way home the other day from an appointment, and I was on the phone with my good friend Adam Waldman, who lives and works as an agent in Long Island.  He suddenly wanted to ask me what a specific type of home would sell for in Pflugerville, Texas, which is where I live with my family.

I was a little surprised by his question, but after he described the home's size, lot size, and so forth, I gave him a rough estimate of the value off the top of my head.

"I KNEW it!", he exclaimed. 

I overheard him telling his wife briefly about this, then he was back on the phone with me.  It turns out that Adam had watched a TV program profiling a couple that was in the process of flipping a house here, and he thought the price seemed too high. 

As it turns out, he was definitely right, as the price he described to me seemed way too high in my opinion.  Apparently, the Austin-area agent didn't even know the market as well as my friend in Long Island. 

Adam is one of the first people I met here on AR, and he has been a regular reader of mine for months.  In a nutshell, my blog has provided enough information about Austin real estate that my out-of-state friend who has never even been to Pflugerville was able to make a more informed judgment about whether this particular home was priced correctly.

I don't write this to brag about my own writing abilities.  Instead, I find this to be an amazing testimony to the power of this network.  When I started in real estate 11 years ago, using the internet for real estate purposes was still very much in its infancy.  Today, I can visit ActiveRain or Localism and learn about almost any market in any state with ease.  Incredible!

So, are you doing a good job of educating others on your own market? 

I will readily admit that most of my posts are not strictly for consumers, but I do include enough of this information that anyone combing through my blog will find some solid information about the market conditions in Austin.  I would encourage you to provide a mix of material, some just for friends and some for consumers.  This has served me well during my 6+ months here. 

Thanks for reading!