Does your real estate blog generate as many leads as it could? Unless you're more interested in spewing a vitriolic diatribe of bad real estate stories, you probably blog to demonstrate your experience and to build relationships. If it's a numbers' game, surely you want to look at some numbers?

This post outlines two key findings from a Vizu blog reader survey. The survey asked, "what makes a good blog?", and the top two responses are worth of note:

1. Frequency of blogging. 51.5% said quality of writing helps them asses which blogs are credible and high-quality. So if you're trying to get your number of readers up, it pays to maintain a good schedule. Is that twice a day, once a day, or once a week? That depends on what you can commit to. 68.3% of respondents said they read their favorite blogs daily.

2. Quality of writing: 43.9% of respondents said the quality of writing determines which blogs they will read regularly. Quality is hard to measure except by observing what is working for you and other writers and taking criticism from professional writers. Read more than you write and read popular writers. And above all, edit yourself - read everything you write and revise it for your target audience.

So blog often, and write well, and track your numbers.

Garreth Wilcock blogs about homes at the old airport in Austin Texas.

What value is putting your Central Austin home for sale on a Realtor tour?

I put my Patterson Heights / Hyde Park listing on the Austin Area 4 Realtor tour this morning. I got some valuable feedback from agents who work in Rosedale and Hyde Park.

There were 9 agents on the tour - all of whom had homes for sale in the area. It's harder to find a more experienced group of agents in the area than by looking at who is helping sellers there right now.

So the Realtor tour provides micro-targeting - marketing to people who have active clients in the area.

The Realtors on this tour all filled in feedback forms. Feedback is like gold dust when it comes to selling your home. And feedback from qualified professionals is more like gold nuggets.

So we got feedback on our staging, decoration and upgrades, and also 9 more price opinions. It turns out that my listing in Hyde Park is well priced and people really liked the kitchen, yard, deck, original wood floors and really lke the curb appeal. Which is great news for the sellers - they got feedback before the market really hits them, and can act on any negative items (I think we're going to put brighter lights in the study / bedroom).

So we get feedback and exposure. It took 3 hours of my day, and as a full service Realtor in Austin, I find it invaluable to my sellers.

Garreth Wilcock is a Realtor in Central Austin. You can search homes for sale in Austin at his website.

6900 E Riverside Dr, Austin, TX 78741

I took a quick preview of the town homes on E Riverside just before their completion. The homes are ready to move in now, and are eligible for FHA financing. First time home buyers can take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit and quit throwing rent money down the drain!

Cedar Park, Tx has a diverse range of homes to choose from. There are homes for first time home buyers, and for larger families The current market has homes above $1m and below $150,000, with a median list price of $263,778.

Read more about home prices in Cedar Park...

Thinking about slapping a granite counter into your new green Austin renovation project? Think again!