Teravista Home for Sale - Round Rock TX - Golf Course Community near IKEA and Outlet Mall

One of my agents, Alan Kirkpatrick, listed a great home today in his neighborhood on the north side of Round Rock (Teravista). 

It is well-priced for the area at $238,000, since prices in this subdivision range up to the high $400's now.

Features:

• 4 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms
• 100% brick
• Culdesac lot surrounded by lush landscaping
• High ceilings
• Art niches
• Corian countertops & bar
• Wood blinds
• Lots of tile flooring
• Sprinkler system
• Covered patio
• Walk-in closets
• Community amenities include: golf, tennis, pools, clubhouse

If you have any questions, or if you would like to schedule an appointment to see these properties or any others in the Austin MLS, please give me a call anytime at 512-796-7653 or email jason@austintexashomes.com. 

If you are looking to relocate to the Austin area, you might be interested in checking out my online relocation package here:

Austin Texas Relocation Package

Our Austin real estate website is at http://www.austintexashomes.com/.  I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Suicide and Depression - Something we really DO need to talk about

I received an email from our church on Thursday around lunchtime, informing me that a friend of mine had died on Wednesday afternoon.  My jaw dropped.  What?!?  He and I are about the same age!  What could have happened?  The email didn't give any clues.  He was overweight - heart attack?  Car accident?

I spoke with a couple of mutual friends who had already heard about it Wednesday evening, since they are closer to the family, but they also didn't know the cause of death.

On Thursday, a new email was sent, revealing that the cause of death was "severe depression".  Clearly, this was a euphemism for suicide.  But I spoke to him on Sunday!  I had no inkling that he was depressed.  That big, social guy?  The guy who was so good at making others feel welcome.  No way!  As one who has gone through a few severe bouts of depression myself over the years, including being hospitalized when I was a teenager for this, I am generally pretty good at reading others. 

My mind raced.  I wish I had known.  I could have said something to prevent it.  I can relate to this type of mental pain.  I could have said the magic phrase that would have assuaged his anguish.  I could have taken him to lunch and talked it out.

Then, suddenly, later, I feel angry with him.  Why would he do this to his family?  He was married (happily it seemed) with two small sons, one of them 4 years old and the other one about 18 months.  Now they have to grow up without a dad.  And what a loving dad he was - he truly enjoyed his children, that much was obvious to any casual observer.  In fact, I admired his parenting skills.  If you read my blog very often, you know that I am in love with my three children, so this is a high compliment: he was a great father.

What was he thinking? 

Well, that's just it.  We don't know now.  Since he didn't show sufficiently alarming signs that he was considering killing himself, he is gone.  He was apparently in counseling, and he was meeting regularly with someone one-on-one who was helping him to work through his feelings, but this proved to be insufficient to prevent this tragedy.

My friend was recently laid off and lost his job, and that could have been enough to make him kill himself.  It could have been something even more minor, though.  This is often referred to as the "501st pound", meaning that you can carry 500, but that last thing is simply too much.  Whatever the case, he was clearly in a very dark place where he couldn't see any light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

As one who has talked two friends out of committing suicide (one of them multiple times), I know that many times suicide prevention is really about being a willing listener.  It may mean investing a few hours, but it really doesn't take as much as you might think to keep someone from dying IF THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT IT.  The key in my friend's case was that he didn't reveal the depths of his despair.

If you have anyone in your life who has a history of depression or who is going through some tough life issues, why not reach out to him/her and see how things are going?  Often it is the small gestures that make a big difference in helping someone to turn the corner.  It may sound trite, but it is absolutely true.  You might be surprised at the response you get.  Believe me - it is better to make someone a little irritated by your concern that to lose them to suicide.

Everyone who knew him was affected in some way, especially since he chose to cut himself down in the prime of life.  His funeral was Saturday, and the church was completely packed.  His wife wrote an eloquent letter to all of us asking for us not to be angry at him, and that he had made a terrible mistake.  She asked for forgiveness for him from his friends and family, as she had forgiven him.  She also went on to say that she felt that somehow God would bring about good from this tragic event, although it was hard for her to see that in the short-term.  I was impressed by her faith, since this was 72 hours after he died.

My mother, who runs the Suicide and Crisis Center in Dallas, has been a great help for me over the past few days, and she has some friends here in the Austin area who will likely be called upon to provide additional counseling and resources in the upcoming months. 

A group of people from our church is trying to assess how to best provide support for my friend's wife and their little boys.  Some of the men also want to provide a stable male influence for these kids as they grow up.  I hope I can do this for them, too.  I think this is our responsibility now. 

In a sense, all of us who knew him, even on a surface level, are now "survivors" of this act.  Here is a terrific link to a brief piece written by Norman Vincent Peale on the topic of suicide:

When Someone Takes His Own Life

If you or anyone you know is currently (or ever) struggling with severe depression, here is a phone number and a website that could help:

1-800-273-TALK (8255) - this is a national suicide hotline

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Also, I know this might sound like I am opening myself up too much here, but if you EVER want to talk to ME about anything, my cell phone number is 512-796-7653.  My schedule is generally flexible enough that I can make time to talk.

Adventures in the Grocery Store - A Real Estate Allegory

For me, there has always been something comforting about the grocery store.  Maybe it's because my first paying job was as a sacker in the Minyard's store in Waxahachie, Texas.  Maybe it's because my grandfather worked for H-E-B Grocery for 38 years until he retired in the early 1970's, not long after I was born.  Whatever the case, I like grocery shopping, unless of course it is with three cranky children in tow. 

Today after church, we needed a handful of items from the store, so I decided to go in and grab them while Pam waited with the kids. 

Two gallons of 1% milk - check.  Rotisserie chicken for my mother-in-law - check.  Blue Bell Ultimate Neopolitan ice cream which will swiftly defeat the purpose of buying 1% milk - check.  Ready to check out.

Here in Austin, almost every big store has gone to a "self checkout" system these days.  I would imagine that this is the case elsewhere, but perhaps I am wrong.  I have noticed this at every grocery store and recently I saw it at Home Depot as well.

They typically limit the self checkout area to 10 or 20 items.

Today, I was happy to use this method, since I only had four items, all of which were clearly marked with UPC codes.  I haven't tried it yet with produce, since there is a complicated-looking book of codes for that.

All four of the registers were being used, and there were only two people waiting.  This will be fast, I thought.  Wrong.

One lady had ONLY fresh vegetables and fruit (see reference to book of codes above), then she proceeded to pay with one dollar bills and coins from a small change purse that she produced.

Another lady made all of us silently roll our eyes, and even caused me to remark, "I guess they don't require an IQ test for this, huh?" to the woman in front of me, who was clearly peeved.  Yes, I really said it.  No, I am not really proud of it, but I was ticked.  Frankly, it wasn't that far off the mark.

Each time this lady scanned an item, she was instructed in a loud computerized voice to "Please place the item in the bag on the carousel."  She did, then she picked it up and put it in her basket.  The system is weight-based.  This means that it is waiting for you to place something on the carousel that weighs the same as the product you just scanned.  It might not be obvious THE FIRST TIME. 

However, this particular woman was instructed at least three times by three different people about how to operate the machine!  Two employees came over, then a well-meaning fellow consumer tried to help.  She would not be dissuaded from her erroneous ways.  She was convinced that her way was correct, although EVERYONE could see that it was simply not the case.  She had about 10-15 items total.  However, I think I was probably not only out of the store before her, but home safely with my family before she defeated the infernal machine.  Clearly, the complexities were beyond her experience and/or abilities.

So, what is my point here?  Sometimes it is simply best to let the professionals handle things.  Buying groceries is not nearly as challenging or complex as selling a home, especially in today's real estate climate. 

This woman reminded me of so many "for sale by owners" that I have seen over the years, who are absolutely determined that their rules are correct, despite all of the indications to the contrary.  It doesn't matter how many agents and/or neighbors try to help them with sound advice.  Their way is going to work eventually.  To an extent, this is true, but how much time is it worth?  In the case of selling a home, it is not simply time, but money that could be lost.  Call someone who does this every day, rather than going it alone.

My comment about the IQ test was harsh, to be sure, but I feel even more strongly about FSBOs who are utterly misguided/deluded with regard to pricing.  Market value is not arbitrary, nor is it determined by what someone feels their home "must" be worth.

If you are looking to sell your home, I would love the opportunity to assist you with your sale. 

I have been selling homes in the general Austin area for over 11 years now, and I have developed a reputation among my peers and past clients as an honest broker/agent.  There are certainly others who have sold more homes than I have, but you would be hard-pressed to find an agent with more integrity than me.  I would rather talk you out of an offer on your home than to assist you in making a bad decision.

Call me anytime at 512-796-7653 or email jason@austintexashomes.com.  I look forward to hearing from you soon!  My Austin real estate website is www.austintexashomes.com. 

Waterfront Homes with Boat Docks - Lake Travis and Lake Austin

Austin and central Texas offer a beautiful chain of lakes suitable for sailing, swimming, and jetskiing.  There are a good number of lovely waterfront homes on the market currently which feature boat docks as well. 

Waterfront land is not possible to duplicate, so homes which back to Lake Travis or Lake Austin have consistently appreciated over the years.  I remember when I started in real estate in 1997 it was still possible to get a nice home on the water for $600,000!   Clearly, this is no longer the case, but these homes have increased dramatically in value, and they remain a solid investment today.

Here are a couple of great examples of what we have to offer in Austin Texas:

This Lake Austin luxury waterfront home was built in 2007 and features over 4000 square feet per the builder, with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths.  Located in the exemplary Eanes school district (Westlake vicinity).  Offered at $2,695,000. 

This Costa Bella dream home features a two-slip boat dock in the back yard, along with fabulous outdoor living spaces.  Home features 9842 sq. ft. per the tax records.  Gated community.  5-car garage!  Panoramic views of Lake Travis.  Offered at $5,395,000.

Listings above courtesy of Coldwell Banker and Avenue One Properties.

If you have any questions, or if you would like to schedule an appointment to see these properties or any others in the Austin MLS, please give me a call anytime at 512-796-7653 or email jason@austintexashomes.com. 

If you are looking to relocate to the Austin area, you might be interested in checking out my online relocation package here:

Austin Texas Relocation Package

Our Austin real estate website is at http://www.austintexashomes.com/.  I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Golf Course Homes near Austin, Texas - One-Story Homes under $300,000

The Austin, Texas area is home to a myriad of both private and public, "daily fee" golf courses.  One of our more common request from those looking to retire to Austin is to find something reasonably priced backing to a golf course.  With that in mind, I gathered a few current listings to illustrate the value here in central Texas. 

All of these listings are one-story ("ranch") homes, with at least 2000 square feet. 

Take a look:

This lovely home in Lago Vista (near Lake Travis) features 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 2117 s.f. per the tax records, with lake and hill country views.  Watch the deer from your back patio while you relax.  Offered at $279,000! 

This home in the Fairways of Blackhawk in Pflugerville includes 4 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, over 2400 s.f., and a 2-car garage.  It was built in 2007 by Ryland Homes.  Offered at $259,500!

This terrific 1996-built home in Forest Creek (Round Rock) features 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, with just over 2000 square feet.  It backs to the 17th green and 18th tee.  There are no homes across the course.  Instead, enjoy a lovely view of the greenbelt.  Offered at $234,000. 

Listings above courtesy of e-Executive Realty, Keller Williams, and Re/Max Round Rock. 

If you have any questions, or if you would like to schedule an appointment to see these properties or any others in the Austin MLS, please give me a call anytime at 512-796-7653 or email jason@austintexashomes.com. 

If you are looking to relocate to the Austin area, you might be interested in checking out my online relocation package here:

Austin Texas Relocation Package

Our Austin real estate website is at http://www.austintexashomes.com/.  I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Blackhawk Homes for Sale - Pflugerville, Texas

There are several sections of Blackhawk, including:

• Fairways of Blackhawk
• Meadows of Blackhawk
• Park at Blackhawk
• Lakeside at Blackhawk

Currently, in all of the subdivisions that comprise this area, there are 52 homes for sale.

In the Fairways, there are 14 current listings, with an average asking price of $265,607.  The average square footage is 2711, yielding an average price per square foot for these homes of $98.66.  The average days on the market is 44.  Here is a breakdown and list of the currently available homes for sale:

Fairways of Blackhawk Homes for Sale 

In the Meadows, there are presently 18 listings available, with an average listing price of $225,723.  The average square footage for these homes is 2681, making the average price per square foot $84.88.  The average days on market is 91.  Here is a list of the current homes for sale in this section:

Meadows of Blackhawk Homes for Sale

The Park at Blackhawk has 12 present listings, with an average asking price of $170,225.  The average home size is 2091, yielding an average price per square foot of $83.23.  Here are the current listings in the Park: 

Park at Blackhawk Homes for Sale

Lakeside at Blackhawk currently has two MLS listings available, priced in the low $300's for both.  Most of the homes in Lakeside which are available are under construction, so they are not necessarily in the MLS at all.  If you have interest in this section, let me know and I will gather some information for you!

If you have any questions, or if you would like to schedule an appointment to see these properties or any others in the Austin MLS, please give me a call at 512-796-7653 or email jason@austintexashomes.com. 

If you are looking to relocate to the Austin area, you might be interested in checking out my online relocation package here:

Austin Texas Relocation Package

Our Austin real estate website is at http://www.austintexashomes.com/.  I look forward to hearing from you soon!

My Son Can Ride a Bike Now! Way to go, Brandon!

As of Wednesday evening, my son Brandon has officially joined the ranks of those who can ride a bike.  He is nine years old.  We had tried awhile back with a little progress, but this time he got the hang of it on the third outing, much like when he learned to swim last year. 

I spent the first day with him in our cul-de-sac going around on the sidewalk in circles basically holding him up from the left side with my hands on the handlebars.  The second day, I took him to the local elementary school parking lot so that we would have more room.  While it provided for some good bonding time between us ("I like spending time with you, dad"), it still felt like it was going to be a bit of an uphill battle.  I was literally jogging backwards and holding the handlebars.  I would let go for a second or so just so that he could feel what it was like to balance, however briefly.

Day three: We got a tip from some fellow homeschoolers that I decided to try.  They said to remove the pedals completely, and lower the seat so that he could balance the bike and sort of scoot/glide around using his feet to stop.  In the meantime, Pam had installed training wheels on his bike and on Aleah's (she is seven).  We decided to try the training wheels, but they weren't working right anyway, so I just rotated them up and out of the way for him.  Aleah likes hers for now. 

I did lower his seat, but the pedals looked too daunting to remove, so I left them on.  He played for awhile, then I asked him if he was ready to try again.  By this time, Pam and our girls were about 100 yards away on the playground relaxing while I was with Brandon.

I raised the seat back up, and he got on.  I held his left handlebar with my right hand holding his left arm.  We started slowly, then picked up speed.  I kept pace with him, then I took my hands off completely when he said he was ready.  I did this for a couple of seconds, maybe three, on the first try.

The second try, I just had a feeling that he could do it. 

"Brandon, do you want me to let go?  Do you have it?"

"Yes, dad.  I think so."

I let go. 

And go he went. 

He went for about 10 seconds unassisted in a straight line, then back across the parking lot in the same fashion. 

We could hear Pam hollering and clapping, even on this very windy evening.  I was also hollering and clapping for him, of course.  Pam came running to hug and congratulate him.  Pam revealed that she was watching and praying from a distance, then she said that she almost couldn't believe her eyes.  I felt the same way.  We have had some balance issues with Brandon which required occupational therapy for about two years, so this is a BIG milestone for all of us.  Tears welled up in our eyes and we hugged each other.  I was proud of Aleah for her cool support of her older brother ("Wow, Brandon!  You did really well!"). 

We celebrated with a pizza party at the house afterwards (his request). 

Yesterday, we worked on steering and getting started from a dead stop without help.  He did marvelously.  Tonight, we went down to the parking lot and he is already getting FAST!  He also seems remarkably error-free for a new cyclist.  Sharp kid!  He even challenged me to a race (me on foot, him on bike).  I like the newfound confidence that he is showing.  I need to take my bike for a tuneup so that we can ride together soon. 

I have some video from our camcorder that I will attempt to share on another post, if I can figure it out.  I guess I need to get one of those flip cameras soon.

Thanks for reading about our special day!

Acreage Homes in Austin, Texas - Nice Homes with 5+ Acres for under $1,000,000

One common request that we have is for properties with at least 5 acres and a nice home at a halfway reasonable price.  Thankfully, this is not that hard to find in the Austin, Texas metro area.  Here are a few current listings that will fit the bill nicely:

This lovely home in Leander, Texas (located about 30 minutes NW of Austin), offers tranquility on just over 6 acres of hill country land with private views.  Over 4000 s.f. per tax records - built in 2001.  Priced to sell at  $679,000!

This Dripping Springs estate features 12+ acres with a 3681 s.f. home.  Negative-edge ("infinity") pool, panoramic views of hill country and wet-weather creek.  Bring your horses!  Just $850,000.

Voice Mail "Triage" - Do you simply return calls in the order in which they were received?

I am the owner and broker for a relatively small company in west Austin (we have 14 agents currently). I also handle my own sales, most of which come from referrals, past clients, and friends at this point, since I have been in business for just over 11 years.  Additionally, I do a lot of networking, both locally and now nationally, through my involvement with ActiveRain.

As such, there are days when I get a LOT of phone calls.  Today was a good example.  I had some friend calls, along with calls about two separate items that are currently being repaired (our TV and one of our notebook computers).  Turns out the TV cannot be repaired at all, but the notebook is an easy fix.  I managed to spill a soft drink on it TWICE. 

Thankfully, I have a dedicated staff of lovely ladies from the 1940's that I employ to help screen the nonsense calls (pictured at right).

At any rate, when I get a lot of voice mails all at once, I typically write them down along with the pertinent info for each call.  Then comes the fun part - voice mail triage.  If you are not familiar with this term, it's because I just made it up today.  I then Googled it, and apparently this was not a completely original thought.  Oh well...

If you are not already familiar with the concept of triage, it is a medical term that they use in emergency rooms to describe the process of determining who to see first.  If you have a detached limb, you will likely be seen very quickly.  If you have a respiratory infection, prepare to wait at least 12 hours to see a doctor.  If your last name is Crouch, prepare to sleep on a cot. 

So, in order to best handle voice mails, I have my own version of triage to determine whom to call back first. 

Here's how things typically go:

First message.  "Hi, Jason, this is Audrey with Advanced Dental.  I was calling to re-schedule your appointment."  Yuck.  Skip. 

Let's see what else we have here.

Second message.  "Hey, Jason, this is Steve.  Gimme a call, man."  That one can wait for the moment, too, I suppose.  Skip.

Third message.  "Hi, Jason, this is Donna.  I have a closing that is supposed to happen...well, right now.  The buyers are threatening not to close - call me PLEASE."  I guess that one sounds important.  Better write it down.

Fourth message.  "Jason, this is James.  I have some questions on a contract I am writing for some clients.  Call me when you have a second."  Also sounds important.

Fifth message. "Mr. Crouch, this is Joe at Centex TV Repair.  We ordered the part and installed it, but it turns out that the LCD screen is out, too.  We can't repair your television.  It would be cheaper to buy a new one.  Please call me."  Well, dang.  So much for going with a "quality" brand.  That lasted about two years - they really don't make them like they used to.

Sixth message.  "Jason - How are you today?  This is Karen.  Could you please re-fax a copy of your license to the apartment place?  They are giving me a lot of grief over sending a $300 check.  Sorry to bother you.  Thanks for your help.  The number is 343-XXXX."  I need to take care of that for her.

I could go on like this, but I think you get the point.  It may sound like I never answer my phone, but I do.  However, if I am at home, and my cell phone happens to be downstairs in the kitchen, I don't feel like breaking my neck on the stairs (or straining my MCL by falling, which I did about two years ago), so I will let it go to my voice mail.  Otherwise, I am generally pretty responsive. 

So, with regard to these particular calls, even though James clearly needs some a little bit of help with writing a contract, it doesn't sound like he is in imminent danger of losing money, so I will call Donna first (neither of these are their real names, by the way).  After a few minutes on the phone, I think we have a good solution in place, and I didn't even have to call and serve as a mediator with anyone else this time, or ease a skittish seller's nerves, or explain to a buyer's agent why his client will not be seeing his earnest money should they decide to cancel 20 minutes before the closing, or break someone's legs.  Whew! 

James' question is very easy and takes about 45 seconds.  So, that clears the most pressing stuff.  I re-assure Karen that I will re-fax the license within five minutes, although it turns out that I don't get it done for a few hours.  More phone calls just happen to arrive in the interim.

The point here that I am clumsily trying to make is twofold:

• Make the hardest and least desirable phone calls first.  As Zig Ziglar famously stated, "If you have to swallow a toad, you don't want to have to look at him on your desk all day.  Get it over with early."
• Have a mental system in place for sorting calls.  Personally, I can make several quick business phone calls in the car on the way to the grocery store, but I may wait until I have a larger block of free time to call my friends.

Thanks for reading!

My Perspective on the Great ActiveRain Content Debate of 2008

DISCLAIMER: I apologize in advance for the sheer length of this post, but I had a lot to say apparently.  I didn't want to include images this time, as I thought they might detract from the message I am trying to get across.

I have seen a bunch of posts with regard to what is "proper" content on ActiveRain lately.  Unless you live under a rock, you have probably also seen these around lately. 

I left the longest comment of my entire blogging career last night on Jessica Horton's featured post (Working the Net or Networking? Which has value? ).  She gave me some good-natured grief about this on Twitter, calling the comment "Lord of the Rings".  Despite the fact that I had mentioned there that I wouldn't write my own post on this topic, I was encouraged today by a good friend to do so, so here we go:

In a nutshell, some people seem to be concerned about the balance of real estate related material written here vs. the "fluff", which is sort of a catch-all term for jokes, recipes, family stories, and other "non industry" posts.  They feel that if too many of these types of posts are made public (instead of Members Only), it could harm the Google juice/power that AR has notoriously harnessed, because Google might somehow devalue the site and see it differently. 

As with the other posts, the stuff I am about to say is my opinion, since I am not on staff at Google, or Yahoo, or any other search engine, so I am not privy to their algorithms.  However, I have been doing my own SEO for my sites since early 1998, before Google was even being used.  Back then, we optimized for search engines like Altavista, Lycos and Excite.  Yes, really.  I feel old now.

At any rate, to make it really easy to understand, Google LOVES new content.  With 85,613 members as of this writing, ActiveRain is generating new pages of content just about every minute of the day.  Every post marked "Public" is a separate page of content. 

With that in mind, AR is viewed by Google's spiders as highly valuable and as an "authority site" for real estate.  You have probably read anecdotes of members who have had pages indexed onto the first page of Google within a few minutes of posting.  This is because Google is constantly spidering this site looking for new pages. 

Does it spider "Members Only" posts?  Not really.  There are tags called "nofollow" tags that will disallow those posts from being indexed in the search engines, and they are automatically generated when we post to Members Only. 

Google cares about the page's structure, along with its content.  The skeletal structure of EVERY SINGLE page/post on AR is built and optimized in exactly the same fashion.  If you look at the bottom of this page (which is the same basic look across the board here on AR), you will see the following keywords and links:

Find TX real estate agents and Austin real estate here on ActiveRain.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
© 2007 ActiveRain Corp. All Rights Reserved 

Also, every single post is titled with "REAL ESTATE BLOG", followed by the author-assigned part of the title.  Clearly, this is adequate to make Google understand that the hundreds of thousands of pages generated here are real-estate related, even if the body of the post itself is about the weather, or a chocolate pie, or an unfunny joke.

I don't want to make this overly technical for those of you who are not into SEO at all, but I think I can make this even more clear, even for newbies.  I did a bit of research just now by viewing the source code for my blog in particular, and I found the following meta tags there:

<meta name="description" content="Austin Texas Real Estate Blog (and other stuff) on the ActiveRain Real Estate Network." />
<meta name="keywords" content="ActiveRain, Real Estate, agents, Network, Real Estate Agent, Mortgage, realtor, social network" />

The only part of this italicized part that I wrote myself was "Austin Texas Real Estate Blog (and other stuff)", as that is the title I originally chose.  The rest of that is automatically generated for me by the AR code.  Keep in mind that THIS is what Google looks at first.  I counted four real estate terms there.  There are a couple of other things in the inherent structure that I could point out if you are really interested, but I think the point is made for my purposes here.

So, what does this mean to you and me anyway?  Well, for one thing, ActiveRain has done things right and has garnered a lot of Google juice by setting up the structure of this site correctly from day one.

Basically, it would be very difficult to derail this by writing about whatever the heck you want to write about.  In fact, I think we could all stop writing real estate posts and concentrate on jokes and recipes for several months without affecting the "balance" to the extent that it would ever be detrimental to our Localism posts.  They will continue to be indexed by Google and Yahoo.  Don't sweat it.

Personally, I enjoy sharing many facets of my personality along with stories of my family.  I would guess that 4 or 5 out of 10 of my posts are truly about real estate.  I want the consumers who find me to feel like they know me already.  These are the easiest buyers and sellers in the world to convert to sales.

Considering the fact that a good number of members have already referred business to me over the past few months, why would I want to stop writing this way?  I write for consumers sometimes, for my friends sometimes, for my family, and even for myself.  

The first AR closing that I had found me on a post that I had written about my CHURCH.  I made about $12,000 on that post, so it had some very tangible value to me.  Obviously, it was not Members Only (thank God!). 

In essence, Google is a fickle mistress sometimes and they want it to be hard to "game" their system.  They are constantly tweaking their algorithm and dialing variables in and out with regard to importance.  If there is ever a temporary effect on the indexing of our posts on ActiveRain, it is something they have done in the Googleplex, not anything that you or I can do here at AR.  It would simply be really hard to ever have much effect on how Google views this site, as it is already well-established as a real estate authority site.  Yes, that is just my opinion, but it is not an uninformed one.

On a separate note, I use StatCounter to track my AR blog visits (which are just over 100,000 now), and I see where the consumers enter my blog initially.  Currently, they are coming directly from Google and Yahoo.  I don't think any serious buyers or sellers are merely surfing around AR randomly like we do, studying the mix of content.  They come to specific posts, then they choose to stay or go.  With that in mind, why not have something interesting for them to look at while they are on your blog?  You got them that far - is it time to show them more market data, or do you think they might enjoy a funny story?

As a further illustration, when I have buyers in the car with me, I could probably talk all day about real estate and nothing else.  Do you think they would be looking forward to our next meeting?  Doubtful.  Wow - I just managed to relate SEO to real estate.  Cool!

I don't claim to be an SEO expert myself, but I have done a lot of my own optimizing over the years, and I can recognize what works and what doesn't.  Obviously, this is a somewhat complex subject, and I hope I haven't oversimplified matters.

Overall, my opinion on this subject is: Write whatever and whenever you want to, just make sure you are writing something!  If you are not taking advantage of this FREE opportunity to market yourself, you are missing the boat. 

I choose not to hide my light under a bushel very often, making the majority of my posts Public.  If you aren't comfortable doing that, by all means, don't.  However, don't be scared to share personal stuff at the risk of harming this enormously powerful (real estate) network. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my exhaustive treatise on this topic!  If you have any questions about what I have covered here, let me know.