If a blog springs up in the forest of New York real estate, will it make a noise? Real estate and the online community have found each other, and that means that somewhere out there, with minimal fanfare, another real estate blog will likely pop up this week.
Chances are you’ll never hear its name uttered or come across it while surfing the Web, but then a number of prominent New York City-focused real estate blogs have already become essential reading for a self-selected group of online insiders. Fans of popular blogs such as Curbed.com, Brownstoner.com and Property Grunt (propertygrunt.blogspot.com) say the rest of the market ignores them at its peril. That’s not just because of the hefty doses of gossip and titillation on offer, but because the best of them offer daily running commentary — sometimes minute-by-minute — as well as interesting visuals and, above all, a level of credibility (one hopes) and good writing that draws in a smart readership.
So what impact are they having on the real estate industry? How do their advertising models work and which ones will survive?
At their best, sites like Brownstoner and Curbed expose defects or shoddy workmanship at new or existing developments, give the lowdown on neighborhoods, and warn their readers away from dishonest or incompetent brokers or overpriced housing.
This consumerist bent oftentimes makes for a snarky tone that borders on outright hostility toward the industry, but then so, too, are there sites that are more celebratory, such as Apartment-Therapy.com and TripleMint.com, which focus on interior and architectural design.
There is also The Real Deal’s own daily blog, which has news summaries and original reporting, and garners nearly 500,000 page views a month.
If you need to be current and of the moment there’s no better place, said Brian Babst, an associate broker with the Corcoran Group and self-professed “blog freak” who reads up to 10 blogs a day. Bloggers, in their collective wisdom, have great foresight, said Babst, pointing by way of example to what he sees as the market’s coming shift away from sprawling multimillion dollar units.
“That’s resonating through the zeitgeist and the blogs reflect that,” he said.
A blog, short for Weblog — in case you’ve been stuck in a cave for the past year or two — is a form of personal online diary, which is usually set out in reverse chronological order and which links to other sites on the Internet. They shine an unvarnished light on their subjects, said Bradley Inman, publisher of Inman News (Inman.com), a nationwide real estate news service which runs a blog site amongst its other offerings.
“If brokers can figure a way to get into the Internet, they can dominate the market,” said Inman, who sees blogs as a great opportunity for the industry. But because blogs report everything from market gossip to innuendo, facts and opinion, they are often viewed with a hefty dose of skepticism, and many real estate professionals view them as unreliable.
Yet if you want to market to these consumers or know what they’re thinking, real estate brokers such as Shawn Macedo of Bellmarc Realty say the time is now.
“A lot of brokers don’t understand it [blogs] and are fearful,” said Macedo, 34, who advertises his Web site on Curbed, the leader of the blog pack, which focuses on New York City and reportedly garners a million page views a month. Macedo said he believes the propensity toward blogging, just like the Internet, cuts along age demographics and leans away from those deals conducted at the upper real estate echelons.
“I think the blogs are definitely here and will play more and more of a role in terms of the transfer and availability of information,” said Bill Hendrickson of Aguayo & Huebener, a realtor in Park Slope that links its Web site to Brownstoner.
Hendrickson said the blogs make for a more informed buying public, which he said is ultimately to the broker’s betterment, and, he added, allow for an independent voice that enables an easier understanding of opposing points of view.
“The success rests on reader input, on people e-mailing you tips and pictures so it becomes a group effort,” said Jon Brownstoner, the anonymous editor of the popular blog about Brooklyn whose site is premised upon his “unhealthy obsession” with historic Brooklyn brownstones.
With 60,000 unique readers a month, the site is registering considerable visitor traffic and yet Brownstoner said he believes most of the readers are non-real estate professionals. “[Blogging in the discussion chat rooms] would be a great way to build up credibility long term,” he said, “and really nobody does that.”
The blogosphere psyche insists upon relevance and edginess. There’s definitely no corporate speak, said Jonathan Miller of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, whose blog, Matrix (matrix.millersamuel.com) is one of the few prominent industry blogs. He’s got followers in the real estate community — HH Realty Group started up a blog last month (hhrealtygroup.blogspot.com), which appears to be the first blog started by a real estate brokerage.
“When I started mine last summer, one of the hardest parts was finding my voice,” Miller said. “For Curbed, it’s snarky and smart-alecky, like if you were watching the Daily Show. That’s not how I write, but neither did I want to be dry and boring. The best way I describe it is it’s a culling together of different takes from different media on the same story and then putting your interpretation on the mix.”
Another important feature is the cross-linking. Zillow.com carries Matrix as does Curbed and, in turn, Miller links to other sites such as Property Grunt, an anonymous real estate broker whose “soldier on the frontlines” attitude has won over considerable readership.
Miller said blogging has become a bit of an obsession. “It’s more than a passion. It’s completely addictive. I started in August and I’ve only missed one day where I didn’t post,” said Miller, whose blog now attracts more than 50,000 readers a month.
Such ratings have not gone undetected by Big Media, with the New York Times (walkthrough. nytimes.com), the New York Observer (therealestate.observer.com), and BusinessWeek magazine (businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty) all having jumped into the fray.
Indeed, the blogosphere has begun to generate its own rating schemes, ratings leaders, business models, and brand-name celebrities. Now, an advertising service called Blogads is helping bloggers sell ads and a slew of companies such as Blogdex, Daypop, Slashdot, Technorati, and Popdex are already rating and ranking the popularity and influence of blogs.
And, in many instances, search engines such as Google are bypassing brokerage Web sites and heading directly to the blogs owing to the Google algorithm, which highly ranks those sites which are frequently updated, said Kim Benabib, publisher of TripleMint.com.
Be that as it may, the technology’s instantaneous feedback mechanism also allows for better journalism.
“People who are not part of mainstream media will disagree and say ‘mainstream should not be blogging,'” said Damon Darlin, a reporter with the New York Times who is one of the main contributors to the Times’ The Walk-Through blog.
Blogs make for a more informed readership, Darlin said, though he was quick to point out the different journalistic standard under which traditional media must operate. “We’re more like a traditional newspaper in ethos, saying ‘let’s look at the facts and draw a conclusion,’ rather than screaming about the facts and hoping the conclusion fits,” he said.
“It’s a publishing model,” said Inman of the growing mania, “and the ones that take on advertising will survive.”