Popular overseas blog Nubricks.com recently announced a new advertising platform dubbed "Launch Newswire" which includes an "unlimited usage" package costing £500/year. Nubricks claims to have over 60,000 unique visitors per month and 12,000 subscribers to its email blast newsletters. They've also recently launched "Property Ladder", a free weekend service where users can showcase overseas property for free, subject to editorial discretion.
Merry Christmas and a Happy 2008 everybody; I know a little late, but better late than never.
Well what a great way to start my 2008 blogging adventure. Here's an interview with the incredulous property porn king Ben Brandt, owner and editor of the influential Rat and Mouse, London's property blog:
Tell me Ben, what prompted you to start blogging about property?A very intense 2004/2005, in which I sold a house and bought another house and a flat during a momentary weakness in the market. Over the course of a year I experienced just about every property-related stress you could think of. I accepted an offer from a nutter with no money whatsoever. I was gazumped on a purchase. Somebody tried to gazunder me on the sale. One of my estate agents was a crook. My solicitor vanished. And my purchaser’s solicitor failed to release funds in time for the system to clear them… late on a Friday night. But after a year of following the market intensely online, I couldn’t “let go”. These were also the very early days of blogging. I was fascinated by what Nick Denton had done with Gawker, and really wanted to try blogging as a form. The Rat and Mouse was a kind of experiment… the coming-together of two fascinations. I never really imagined I’d still be doing it even a year later.
How do you go about choosing the articles you link to and write about on R&M?
Firstly, I try to provide all the dry statistics… indices and data relating to the property market… but delivered with a sense of humour. The property market’s emotional… there’s surprisingly little science or sense to it, so I don’t believe a conventional, straight-faced approach is necessarily more appropriate. Secondly, I try to pick up on the kind of stories that might stand a chance of being discussed. Property’s an obsession for Londoners, both renters and owners, and during both boom times and bust. I trawl through most of the day’s newspapers – from the UK and abroad – for relevant or interesting stories. I think a lot of people come to the Rat and Mouse because it saves them the work. I also respond to the mailbag… I get a lot of email.What has been the most interesting observation you have had since you started blogging?
Everybody needs to blame somebody. The vendor blames the agent. The agent blames the vendor. The landlord blames the tenant. The tenant blames the landlord. The CML blame the Government. Everybody blames Foxtons.What is your assessment of the London property market?
It’s overpriced. Having said that, so are Bentleys, but don’t expect to see them on sale for £10,000 any time soon.How important do you think R&M is to the property market?
It’s not important, but it’s read, and I’m very happy about that. The Times and the FT have written some very nice things about the Rat and Mouse, traffic continues to grow, and it never ceases to surprise me how many people have heard of the blog, even if a small minority think it’s about rodents.What are your goals for R&M?
I didn’t start with goals, but I’m beginning to think I need to formulate some. The Rat and Mouse is becoming quite expensive to run (in terms of bandwidth), so I guess my goals are to capitalise on a few years’ hard work, arrange some advertising or sponsorship and continue to grow traffic. I’ve had some interesting offers recently that have shown the value of “the brand”. The Rat and Mouse is the top search result when Google-ing “property blog”, and has nicely targeted traffic.Do you consider yourself a professional blogger?
No, but I’m a professional writer/broadcaster in my “other life”… so journalism isn’t a mystery to me. I’m not sure how many professional bloggers there really are in the UK. There are a few venture-funded bloggers…Has anybody ever offered you money to blog about something?
Yes. Frequently. Without exception, the answer’s “no”. There’s always ad space, however, if anyone’s interested…Best / worst aspects to blogging?
Just knowing I’m being read by more people than I could shake hands with in a day is a real thrill. The worst aspect is undoubtedly comment spam. In the thousands. Daily. “I am much enjoying your rats, and will please be telling my friends, thankyou, click for tits-pix…”And thank you Ben for continuing to entertain and inform us after all these years. Blogs come and go quite frequently and property blogging is time consuming requiring a great deal of dedication and focus. No doubt about it, Ben B. is one of the unsung heroes of the London property market. Let's continue to give him all of the support that we can ...
Thanks, Harvey, for the chance to talk a little about the Rat and Mouse. It’s been fun. Keep up the good work on Renthusiast.
Almost a year to the day Sam Sethi left Techrunch his startup Blognation is officially dead. Although Sam blames Mike Arrington for his failure Mike does offer a fairly balanced explanation as to what really happened:Marc Orchant had a massive heart attack. And the reason he had a heart attack may have been because he was working for Sam, not being paid, and massively stressed out about supporting his family. That is a debatable point, but another Blognation editor, Oliver Starr (who also used to work with me), decided to destroy Sam and Blognation by attacking him publicly.
It's kinda sad to see Blognation go, but to go this way is even sadder. A lot of people believed in Sam Sethi. I met him a few times and thought he was a pretty stand-up guy. Outside of the rumors and innuendos I personally feel that the real reason Blognation failed is that they expanded the business way too quickly.
Coming from the land of Page 3, the video is actually quite tame. In London I see way more T&A daily in a bunch of different tabloid newspapers and often pay very little attention; but in Florida, things seem to be a whole lot different.
Shaun McLane, an Orlando based agent and blogger posted a video and blogged about using sex to sell real estate. The New York Times wrote about this; Curbed had a competition to find the sexiest agent, and we even did our part (but got overwhelmed with responses). So the point is, Shaun (who has left us many comments in the past) posts the controversial video and asks the hypothetical question does sex sell real estate. The honest answer is yes it does, sex sells everything, but it doesn't have to be pornographic.
The problem with me watching Shaun's video is that it showed a lot of T&A (which I enjoyed watching), but it didn't show a lot of houses. If I came across the video elsewhere, to be truthful, I probably wouldn't make the connection between the sexy women shown in the video and the houses Shaun was trying to sell, which would be the whole point of making the video. If I had seen the women in the houses, or if Shaun was attempting to attract me to a certain lifestyle, it would probably have made a difference. My memories of Florida (I've been to Miami, but I've never visited Orlando) is women, beaches, bikinis and a fabulous nightlife. My first impression of Shaun's video reminded me of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue or of a calender that I would see in a construction office. The point is it wasn't sexy enough to sell me real estate, but it was controversial enough to get Shaun fired from his job as an agent with an undisclosed brokerage in Orlando.
From Shaun's most recent blog post:
The video has been making its rounds, and I decided to share it with a few of most closest friends in my office. One of them decided to forward it to our team leader, who then forwarded it to my broker. I received a call from the team leader saying she wasn't happy with the video. She said she didn't really know what to say, and that the video looked very professional, and the music was "nice," but she didn't think it was acceptable. Later last night, I missed a call from my broker, and she left a less-than-nice voicemail disapproving of the video.Jay Thompson, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy commented on Shaun's situation, stating that:
Fast forward to about 30 minutes ago. My phone rings, and it's my broker. She stresses how unhappy with this video she is. She admits that she, and the others in the office got a good laugh from it, but she did NOT want the video associated with her office. Well, if you watch the video, it makes no mention of her office, but she said that wasn't good enough.
Twenty minutes later, I get an ultimatum: "Take the video down, or I'll have to let you go."
The video is still up, and I no longer work for this broker.
the broker has legal obligations and liabilities that a lot of agents seem to forget. The "I'm an independent contractor" argument isn't valid in *many* of the places agents tend to use it.Describing the video as 'out the box' Jay offered further commentary on Sellsius:
just because someone is an independent contractor does not give them carte blanche to do whatever they want, particularly when it comes to advertising (which ostensibly is what the video was). At least in Arizona (and maybe different in Florida), the designated broker has to approve all advertising. They are liable for it, so they have the right to approve/deny it. It’s the broker’s ass in a sling, not the agents, if anything goes awry with state or fed regs.In a related comment on Future, Shaun agrees that his video could have been "less blatant," but that it was meant to be "over-the-top." Nevertheless, Shaun's argument is that the whole thing could have been avoided if he had been approached differently. Shaun intends to open his own brokerage in a few weeks and we wish him best of luck. If you're ever in Orlando and feel like buying some property, why not stop by Shaun's office. All round, he seems like a pretty decent guy, somebody I'd probably do business with.
Would I have fired Shaun? I don’t know. I would have had aand long chat, with a mutual exchange and discussion — listening to his side and explaining mine. Maybe I’m way out there, but I think we could have come to an agreement where both of us were happy.
If you're like me and can't live without your daily hourly fix of London's Property Blog, sad news as R&M is experiencing technical difficulties this morning and expect to be back up shortly. Thanks for your patience on behalf of Rat and Mouse. We'll keep you posted
Update: Back up and running
One of the hardest working women in the property business is now adding her voice to the blogsphere with the recent launch of The Blonde Property blog. A hearty congratulations to Louisa ... BTW let's do lunch ... soon ...
via Property Grunt:
Curbed.com, a popular real estate blog network with sites in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, has obtained $1.5 million in financing to expand into new cities and add staff members. According to Lockhart Steele, the network’s publisher, traffic is growing 10 percent a month and the site is drawing national advertisers.
Greg Swann and the Bloodhound blog's innovative 'Odysseus Medal' blog carnival is currently showcasing their shortlisted entries for this weeks carnival.
Swann's innovative approach to "blog carnivalism" is that the voting is open to the public after the Bloodhound bloggers meticulously prepare a shortlist of the best posts ... sweet, as most blog carnivals are getting played out.
The Odysseus approach is fun and unique 'cause it's interactive and in the spirit of 2.0. Check out the shortlist, pick your favorite then vote. I voted for People Don’t Buy Homes Online by Greg Tracy of BlueRoof blog. I also submitted my Liam Bailey post from last week, but unfortunately it didn't get shortlisted.
BTW, happy labour day to everybody in America
This story is weird.
Social blogger Rachel from North London (pictured) is the victim of blogstalker Felicity J Lowde.
Lowde was found guilty of harassment recently, but is on the run and blogging a strange rant/defense over here.
Rachel is a heroic 7/7 bomb survivor, and set up her blog to help other victims of the tragedy, yet Felicity J Lowde has the audacity to accuse her of "deserting the dead".
The story gets weirder as one of the most popular estate agents in London almost goes by the same name as the apparent Ms Lowde(Felicity J. Lord), 
which leaves me wondering that perhaps the reason the police can't catch up with Ms. Lowde is because she's using a pseudonym. Nevertheless, can all this negative publicity be good for Felicity J Lord?
UPDATE: May 25, 2007; Lowde captured and in custody
We're honoured to host this edition of the Cavalcade of Risk blog carnival. In light of yesterday's stock market meltdown, we feel risk analysis is quite timely and we've decided to split the submissions up into different categories namely
Irresponsible people take risks without ever paying attention to the dangers the risk brings, and take action out of “impulse” instead of preparation and careful thought. For example, suppose someone gets a suggestion from a friend to invest his money on a certain stock, and lets suppose this person doesn’t really have any investing experience, then out of sheer excitement he goes out and invests all of his money on that stock hoping he will have a great return. This wouldn’t be risk taking, this would just be acting irresponsibly. If this man would have taken the time to study the friends suggestion properly and with the help of capable people, and determined that it would be best to invest only a portion of his money, he would still be taking a risk while investing, but he couldn’t possibly be accused of acting irresponsibly. with some sound adviceThe Digerati Life warns investors to "Know Thyself" by analyzing your "investor profile":
Investing is a way to make your money work for you so that you can take calculated risks for the promise of a better reward relative to simply stuffing your money in a hidden nook somewhere in your house. The more you know about risk and how it can affect you and your situation, the better off you will be. Bottom-line: there is a law that states that your returns are directly proportional to the risk you take.Israeli Speculator submits a definition of Arbitrage financing
Arbitrage is basically in simple terms “making money out of nothing”. There is no risk involved. But sometimes people abuse this term or are not aware of a hidden risk.Over at Calculated Risk, a WSJ report is analyzed, concerning sub-prime lenders "less than stellar risk assessment on loans", which many are blaming for the current volatile conditions on the stock market:
Slowly but surely, people are starting to get it, and slowly but surely, I am starting to think that the tipping point in credit -- via a subprime-generated shambles in CDO (collateralized debt obligation) land -- is closer than anybody imagines.
There is a lot of leverage in the business which means they don't just use the money they have but borrow money, so they use multiples of their own capital. The risk is what the size of the positions are and what happens in those positions if all of a sudden something outside impacts on the market to change it or if the liquidity begins to dry out. That changes the ability to get in and out of markets .Lynch Ryan at Workers Comp blog highlights the way different states approach workers compensation:
there are 51 US jurisdictions involved in workers’ compensation, each with a different law. That’s 51 opportunities to get it right, or 51 opportunities to get it wrong.Roth & Company Tax Updates looks at the Bush administration's health insurance proposals with a rather favorable assessment:
The proposal will almost certainly encourage some people who currently lack insurance, particularly middle-income families, to get it. And the core of the new proposal is not biased towards the provision of favored forms of insurance (e.g., high deductible policies) over other forms of insurance that could reduce spending (e.g., managed care or plans with higher copayments).Political Calculations examines the French tax and social security system:
What do a seemingly unending stream of car burnings and the French Social Security program have in common? The answer may be that the more Renaults, Peugeots and Citroëns that go up in flames, the better the finances for France's social safety net becomes.
Being bossy is easy; being a good boss is hard work. Being a great boss takes a combination of talent, emotional intelligence, and wisdom.Alas, much easier said than done Rita!
A lot of us real estate bloggers have been using the recently launched MyBlogLog as another social networking platform. But there's an apparent flaw in the service which makes it relatively easy for a users domain to be hacked. It seems like there is no verification system on MBL which means that anybody can sign up to the service choosing to use any domain they want without having to prove that they're the ones who own or control it:in order to claim my piece of the MyBlogLog pie I go to register where I can upload my own photo and hopefully claim my own blog. As an idealist, I’m assuming that MyBlogLog should offer blog owners some kind of code for doing so, in the same tradition of Technorati. You know what though, they do not:
So far on the MBL blog, there's no mention of the flaw or any attempts to fix it; however this raises an even bigger question for RE bloggers and the importance of trying to create a brand using web 2.0 as a platform . With so many social networking platforms being built and peer pressure to sign up to all of them, the search guru reminds us of two important to consider while building your web 2.0 brand:
This is a pretty major problem with MyBlogLog, as the owner of a blog, I should be able to claim that blog as my own. But judging from the sign up process, there is not a blog verification system for doing so. For a company which is part of the Yahoo family (or soon going to be), such simple verification measures should be a given.
1. Are you monitoring everywhere on all the Web 2.0 sites where you could possibly have your own brand "hijacked" ?Important questions to ask going into the new year as Time magazine reminds us.
2. Are the Web 2.0 services secure enough to prevent this type of identity hacking from happening in the future?
... to everybody who made our first year's blogging experience loads of fun; a big thank you and best holiday wishes; most important thank you to our readers and subscribers. Shout outs especially to the following:
Adam @ Nubricks
Amanda & Charlotte @ Ashton Billige
Amy & Drew @ Zillow
Amy @ DCLG
Artemi, Doug @ Extate
Ben @ RatandMouse
Charlie @ Charlie's Real Estate
Clive @ ProHipHop.com
Craig @ Property4Media.com
Dustin, Galen, Ardell @ RainCityGuide
Ed, Xavier, Ahmed @ Nestoria
Greg @ BloodhoundBlog
Henry @ BricksnClicks
Ivalio, Rod @ Zoomf
Joel @ FoREM
Julia & Nikki @ Cohn&Wolfe
Liam @ Knight Frank
Miles @ Rightmove
Nick @ First4Sale
Nikki @ Homethinking/RealEstateVoices
Sara @ Annie Jennings PR
Sarah @ FindaProperty
Sarah Van der Noot
Steve @ Foxtons News
Kendra Todd
... and of course everybody who works behind the scene to make this blog happen! Let's continue to kick ass in the New Year
Here's a rundown of stories covered on Renthusiast; the ones we feel had the most impact in 2006
As news reports circulate about potential strike action at The Telegraph, Robert Young reminds us that it was 20 years ago that Rupert Murdoch instigated the Wapping Dispute which shook up and revolutionized the British newspaper industry. Today, Young feels that Murduch is on the crusp of another media revolution - blogging.
Young seems to think that with Murdoch's successful Myspace coup d'etat, that he's now got his eyes on an even bigger internet phonomenom:
Today, the newspaper industry is again facing many challenges and possible extinction. The fiscal problems plaguing iconic brands like the New York Times and the Tribune Company are well documented. But the problem this time is not offset-lithography… it’s the rise of the blogosphere. Simply put, it’s centralized content production and distribution vs. decentralized people media. I have now learned, first hand, how blogging competes with traditional newsprint reporting and publishing. So where does all this leave us? If I was a betting man, I’m going to bet that Murdoch’s next move is to acquire a blogging platform… either Six Apart9 (which owns Moveable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal, and Vox) or Automattic10 (owner of WordPress). And if he does, it can prove to be his 21st century “Wapping”.Where and how does all this fit into real estate? Obviously, the changing face of media will no doubt affect how real estate is sold and advertised.
The New York Times decided to scrap the acclaimed "Walk Through" blog, which focused on the national real estate market in the US. However, the media powerhouse announced the launch of new real estate websites including:
At the end of the day, it was a noble attempt at something that it is difficult for Big Media to pull off. They had Damon Darlin, a prolific writer for the business section to be the primary contributor plus a slew of other writers. The business section was the driver of the blog rather than the real estate section, which I didn’t quite understand, but nevertheless, it had all the pedigree it needed to be successful, yet it wasn’t.Not to mention the lack and inconsistency of posts. Miller highlights 8 items he feels makes a blog work, and at the top of the list is "consistency" i.e - post every day if possible. Easier said than done for most of us "part-time bloggers"; but shouldn't have been so difficult for somebody who was getting paid for it . At least a few times a week would have been adequate
The Walk-through started out fairly benign but was skewered alive when it took on the bubble bloggers. The reader’s response was rapid and readers pulled no punches.
After that difficult period, its content then seemed to lose its identity. It couldn’t address the question: Was their a real estate bubble? Not that it had to have an answer, but bubble bloggers wanted a commitment. Shortly after this period, the content reverted to its original safe format as if those responsible lost interest and the quantity of posts seemed to ease off.
Congratulations to Nubricks, the first non-US blogger to host the Real Estate Carnival. Check them out for some really fascinating articles from real estate blogsphere:
The Carnival of Real Estate Edition 8 / Nubricks.com
As we reported earlier this week, the Indian government is clamping down on bloggers. Todays' WSJ follows up with more details:
India's Department of Telecommunications sent an order late last week to Internet-service providers to block several Web sites, according to a department spokesman ... who declined to disclose the contents of the letter or discuss the order, saying it was a "confidential exchange of information between the department and the operators."WSJ.com
Close to a third of the sites were home to blogs, the personalized Web logs that have become popular in India, just as they have in other parts of the world. Among the Web sites blocked are parts of Blogger and GeoCities. Included on a list seen by The Wall Street Journal are sites that showcase views of an Islamic holy man, conservative Hindus, and Dalits, the low caste in India pejoratively referred to as untouchables.
A spokeswoman for Google Inc., which owns Blogger, said, "We are currently looking into the situation to determine whether, and why, this has taken place." A spokeswoman for Yahoo Inc., which owns GeoCities, also said the company was looking into the matter.
we had taken up the matter with the authorities concerned in the Department of Telecommunications in the Government of India and the facts are as under:
A two-page write up containing extremely derogatory references to Islam and the holy prophet which had the potential to inflame religious sensitivities in India and create serious law and order problems in the country appeared in a blog facilitated by well known search engines. The matter was immediately taken note of by our CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) and the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) was informed of it. The DOT took up the matter forthwith with the search engines and instructions were also issued to all Internet providers to block the two impertinent pages. Because of a technological error, the Internet providers went beyond what was expected of them which in turn resulted in the unfortunate blocking of all blogs. Department of Telecommunications have now clarified the issue and the error is being rectified and it is expected that normalcy in respect of blogs will soon be restored.
Hob Gadling says,
Rediff is reporting that India's blog blockade will end in 48 hours. According to a spokesperson of the Internet Service Providers Association of India, the block happened as some ISPs misunderstood the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) notice and blocked entire blog domains instead of individual blogs. Ironically, the report lists the individual sites blocked thus attracting more attention towards them.
Reports are rapidly circulating in blogsphere that the Indian government is in the midst of instigating a crackdown on major blogger domains (blogspot, typepad and geocities).
So far no one seems to know why and we cannot find any links to any official documents.
But credible blog sources out of India are reporting; so far Rebecca hasn't taken the case, neither has Global Voices. Googleblog hasn't posted anything official and Battelle is on vacation ...
We're not sure why the Indian government would do something at a time like this, given the excellent coverage during the Mumbai bombings. Maybe they're trying to link blogs to terroism.
RELATED LINKS
Boston based condoDomain.com a site dedicated to marketing new condominium developments in urban areas throughout the US and Canada (so far Toronto) today announced 16 new markets (local websites) to its network. condoDomain.com claims to connect buyers, brokers and developers of condominiums in one place with its site. They launched in Boston this past January and now boast 33 local websites, showcasing over 1,000 properties. The press release claims brokers and developers are enjoying conversion rates in the 7-17% range, and the sites are delivering over 300 leads on average per week.
full release [pdf]
