Blogging

These days I consider that I have 3 lives. My first life is with my wife and kids, as well as my brother and sister’s family. Life with family is a good thing, and it definitely comes first for me. At least, it should be my first life. I occasionally get my priorities mixed up, but then again, I am human. My second life is as a real estate agent. Being a real estate agent, I list homes for sale or rent, show people homes they could buy or lease, and on occasion, earn money for helping people buy, sell, or rent their property. To be honest, I thoroughly enjoy that life, nearly as much as my first life.

My 3rd life, is almost a secret life, at least among the people I primarily interact with in my first and second lives. However, the people I know in my 3rd life, I know pretty well. I interact with them “socially” via networking mediums like Twitter, Plurk, PropertyQube, Trulia, FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, ActiveRain, and BrightKite. I’m almost embarrassed to admit to my 3rd life friends that I don’t use my flickr account. I frequently StumbleUpon things, so that they can be shared with others, or make note of them de.lici.usly.

Of all of the places I can be found in my 3rd life, Twitter currently ranks as #1. Twitter has enabled me to learn so many things about blogging, real estate, and life. It’s simply amazing what 140 characters of what someone is doing “right now” can accomplish. I’ll never forget when I tweeted Diana Santos the day she started her new blog: Diana’s Neighborhood. I loved the look of the site, and sent her a tweet with a comment saying so. She was flabbergasted that I even knew it existed, and was sure I must be right there in the office with her (she’s in Connecticut, and of course I’m in Scottsdale). That’s part of the magic of this 3rd life. It’s so instant, so real, so now. It’s not all of the time, however. Like my 1st and 2nd life…it’s there when I can be there, and no one complains when I can’t be. It’s socializing. It’s like the 15 minutes I spend at Starbucks most mornings with Mike, Mike, and Michael (why a Steve is allowed to be in the group, I don’t know.)

If you have a mind to poke in and check out what REALTORS and other social networking agents of change are doing when they aren’t doing “real work”, feel free to sign up and befriend or link to me in any of the social networking forums above. If you already have an account at one of the above sites, but we aren’t friends or aren’t yet linked, please find me.

Oh, and if any of the above sites require a beta invite, shoot me an email or leave a comment, I’ll be happy to “hook you up” if I have beta invites left to give out.

It was announced earlier today on The Qube Exchange that I did win PropertyQube’s iPhone contest. I want to thank everyone that showed me support by joining my network and thus enabling me to win. Apple has suspended iPhone shipments recently, so it is expected that the new iPhone is coming out within the next 2 weeks.

I’m pretty excited. Watching Cali Lewis hack her iPhone the other day had me almost salivating. At any rate, once I get an iPhone, making the blog iPhone friendly will absolutely be a priority. Again, thanks to you for helping me, and thanks to PropertyQube for being so generous.

Dru Bloomfield and Craig Frooninckx both hit me up with a meme request. I was meme’d back in January, but this time the format is a bit different, so I’ll indulge Dru and Craig.

1. Who is your favorite musical artist? (post a youtube video)

I’m going to go with U2 as my favorite band right now. When I was younger, it was definitely The Cure. Green Day’s American Idiot is still the best album I have ever heard, and I’m quite fond of Angels & Airwaves. Sorry, but you can search YouTube if you want for samples.

2. Who is your favorite artist (post a flicker photo)

Without a doubt its Sergio Ladron de Guevara. I wrote about Sergio last September. He lives in Cave Creek, and his gallery is a beautiful place that I encourage anyone that’s in Cave Creek to visit. I just purchased a little something for my wife on mother’s day from Sergio (seen here). Sergio’s wife Kathy is quite the ambassador, reader of my blog (thanks Kathy!), and honestly, would make an excellent blogger herself, if she ever chose to switch from her daily emails to blogging. It’s a rare day when I don’t make it a point to see what tiny wonder Kathy sends to my inbox each day.

3. Who is your favorite blogger?

I’m going to say Cali Lewis, even though she’s more of a pod caster. If you haven’t seen Geek Brief TV, you are missing out. Cali’s podcast is exactly why I don’t do video here on my blog. I know what excellent looks like, and there’s no way I can get anywhere close to Cali’s excellence.

4. If you could meet anyone (alive or dead), who would it be and what is the most interesting thing about them?

I’m not a fan of this type of question…it’s as if to say, my life isn’t interesting enough, don’t I wish I were someone else that knew cool people? I really like my life, and think it has gone splendidly. I consider myself extremely fortunate, as inspiration, perspiration, and luck have all played together nicely for me.

However, a person I would like to meet, is the person in the future that solves world peace. I mean that seriously. I don’t have any doubt in my mind that eventually, the world will evolve into a place that doesn’t have 195 countries, with different beliefs and ideologies. Instead, there will eventually be a unified world, and thus, war as we know it, will finally end. I’m not naive enough to think there won’t be dissatisfaction and civil disobedience, thus there will still be the need for police, but not armies, navies, and air forces.

For a moment, imagine the US economy, if we didn’t spend billions on military defense each year, and that’s why I’d like to meet this person in the future.

5. What did you want to be when you grew up?

This may sound funny, coming on the heals of my last answer, but the first time I ever declared I wanted to be something, it was a pilot in the air force. Later I found out I had 20/60 vision and that dream was squashed.

6. What is the most interesting piece of trivia you know?

This stat is now inaccurate, but it was “10,000 people a month move to Phoenix.” Extrapolating that out to what it means with regard to Phoenix real estate is simply mind boggling. If that number is now only 5,000 or 6,000 people, it’s still pretty staggering to think of the implications. That, and did I mention Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog was ranked #53 by Jonathan Washburn at Active Rain? Oh yes, I did mention that last Saturday. Ooops.

7. If you could live in any point in history what would it be and why?

That point in the future where world wars don’t take place.

8. What is the most interesting job you have ever held?

Most interesting? The first job I had out of college would probably be it, but for far more reasons than just the job itself. I was single, young, energetic, unencumbered, naive, and at times inspired. I was part of an amazing team of software engineers that developed the underpinnings of what would eventually become www.americanexpress.com, except we did it before there was a world wide web, before AOL, before Linux, and before so many things I now take for granted. Being so free to learn, explore, grow, and create enabled the job to be more than just a job. Plus, I met my wife on that job…and what could be more interesting than that.

I should mention that I was remarking with Dru Bloomfield a month or so ago, that recently I have been learning at a pace I haven’t personally been on since those days in the early 1990’s. All too often (from my family’s perspective) I’m in my office reading, learning, planning, and envisioning the future until well into the early hours of the morning, because so much new, cool stuff is happening right now, all at once. The technologist in me is intrigued by the ways that technology and real estate can be combined. As a result, what I’m doing now is extremely interesting. A year ago, before this blog, and the connections I’ve made as a result of this blog, I honestly wouldn’t say that being a real estate agent was tremendously interesting. I liked it, as I will always like helping people find a new home. Meeting new people, with different backgrounds is indeed interesting. But combining real estate and technology…that has been a really cool ride of late.

Continue the challenge.

I’m not going to tag 8 people to meme, but here are a couple of Phoenix area bloggers I follow, that happen to be agents with Realty Executives, like myself, that you probably haven’t heard of. They haven’t been tagged by the meme game yet, so we’ll see how they play:

Gene Urban - Urban Life

Jon Griffith - Scottsdale Real Estate Search

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When I started this blog, I had as motives some very humble, and to be honest, ill-conceived goals. I had read that most bloggers were in their 20’s. As I was approaching 40, I wanted to show what this “old guy” could do. As well, I wanted to provide an additional web link to my (at the time) poorly indexed website: www.teambelt.com.

It’s now 10 months later, and I’ve tossed all of my old goals in the trash. In fact, the pace of growth here at PAREB has been so fast, milestones often go unnoticed, which should be triggering me to re-evaluating what I’m doing. That said, a few key milestones have come along recently that I feel compelled to write about.

The first, is that Jonathan Washburn, CEO of Active Rain, has begun compiling a list of the Best Real Estate Blogs in the country. Jonathan published his inaugural list back in March, and then last week published the list again with up-to-date numbers. I didn’t make Jonathan’s inaugural list, but this month, PAREB appeared as the #53 blog. I was blown away when read that. #53 in the nation in just 10 months. Now, we could certainly debate the legitimacy of the list, and whether PAREB is really #53 or whether it should fall above or below that number, but I’m not really concerned so much about the actual rank, versus the fact that PAREB has a rank at all. To be considered as one of the top 100 real estate blogs in the country simply flabbergasts me.

The second thing that stunned me last week was that Google seems to like PAREB quite a bit more recently than it used to. These days, Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog has been hovering right around #20 for the keywords Phoenix Real Estate. There are many keywords where PAREB falls in the top 10, top 5, or even #1, but the holy grail for a Phoenix Real Estate website would be to crack the top 10 for those keywords. We aren’t there yet, but considering Google believes there are nearly 2 million possible websites with Phoenix Real Estate content, getting to the top 20, is certainly noteworthy.

If you are a reader of PAREB, I want to thank you for your readership. Without readers, none of this happens, so my sincerest thanks to each and every person that has visited this blog. For my clients, the high ranking PAREB gets results in an added marketing benefit that I can provide. For everyone, I’ll continue to work on my writing and my content, and then with it, Phoenix Area Real Estate blog will hopefully continue to grow.

That’s right, I’m going straight to the point.  This is real estate transparency at it’s clearest.  I want to win an iPhone, and I need your help to do it.  In January I wrote that I needed a smart phone, and I’ve held off the purchase for various unknown reasons, so the need still exists.  Today, the reason revealed itself (the universe works in mysterious ways).

Here’s all you need to do to help me win.  Click on the new Property Qube link there below my ugly mug on the left sidebar.  If you are reading this in a feed reader, here’s the button and link I’m referring to:

After you click that, I’m asking you to join Property Qube and connect to my network.  It’s free.  It won’t hurt.  No one is going to come and bother you in the future.  The person (agent or otherwise) that can get the most connections in the month of May will win an iPhone.  I want to be that person.

Ok, you may be thinking to yourself, I like Steve a bit, but what good is this Property Qube thing anyway?  Why bother joining?

Here’s what Property Qube is:  It’s a social networking website that’s seeking to help buyers and sellers connect with each other and real estate agents in mutually beneficial ways.  Naturally, that means you can find listings of homes for sale or for rent on Property Qube.  They’ve also got a pretty cool Q&A section where you can ask a question and get an answer.  Plus they have social groups.  Create a group of indy coffee drinkers from Amarillo, Texas and invite your friends to hang out on Property Qube and chat real estate (or coffee) if you like.  Wanna create a blog about your home buyer, selling, or remodeling experience and have it seen by like-minded people?  Property Qube would be good spot.  If you already have a blog that’s real estate related, you can have your posts syndicated (in a Google friendly way) to Property Qube to garner extra visibility.

Having been at Property Qube since near its inception, what I like about Property Qube is the environment is pretty relaxed.  Unlike similar sites, the agents helping folks on Property Qube are doing so to help first.  There isn’t a competition based system that encourages agents to answer each and every question asked.  This leads to fewer answers, admittedly, but from what I’ve seen, it also leads to better answers.  For agents looking for a more relaxed environment to offer their services within, Property Qube is a place worth considering.  Likewise, for non-agents looking for a place to discuss real estate in an non-competitive environment, Property Qube is well worth considering.

Have I convinced you it’s worth a try?  I sure hope so.  If I have, click on the link and join my network.  I can’t promise to make you rich or save you millions, but I will promise to graciously thank each and every person that joins my network for helping me win.

I don’t post often on Saturdays, but this seems like a good time to acknowledge that Dru Bloomfield roped me into being a panelist at the upcoming Scottsdale Area Association of Realtors Technology Symposium.  Jay Thompson, Dru, and myself will be hosted by Kevin Garner, Managing Director of the NAR’s Center for Realtor Technology, answering questions from the audience about real estate blogging.

You can still sign up for $25 if you do so before Friday.  If you show up on Friday, it’s $30 at the door.

Not only will there be a break-out session for blogging, there’s a session on FlexMLS, Lead Generation Systems, and Getting started with a web site.

Where & When:

April 25, 8:00am – 12:30pm
Chaparral Suites Ballroom
5001 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, AZ

Keith Garner has also authorized us to organize a meet-and-greet breakfast of Phoenix Area Real Estate bloggers Saturday, April 26.  Comment here or contact Jay or I for details.  Naturally, space is somewhat limited for breakfast.