Good news in Real Estate - the only kind I want - 02/29/08 07:25 PM
The Bellingham Herald just ran a front page article on our healthy housing market. Thought I would pass the good news. From Mimi Osterdahl"The Bellingham Housing Market Is STRONG" or, access the article from her Blog:Live good. Be happy. Be positive!Mimi Osterdahl / The Muljat Group Realtors / Bellingham, WashingtonWe could say the same thing right here in Northwest Indiana, this week we sold two homes and closed another in our offices. The market is definitely back! … (3 comments)

Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World - 02/20/08 10:54 PM
Have you been watching the SEO contest, about a week old now, for the search term Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World? 
Well I was about a week behind and missed much of the action, but decided I don't really need the title (and probably couldn't beat some of these pros anyway) but I could at least offer to help.  If you are competing, please drop me a line somewhere and I'll add an inbound for you using the keywords. 
Here's my first one:  Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World.  Why?  Because when I asked on twitter, she replied.  … (4 comments)

Give Paul Chaney some link love - 02/19/08 03:15 PM
Let me just say it straight, Paul has been an active part of AR, and helped many of us with our online presence.
He wants to try and build some link love and diggs for the following article:  Press Release for Bizzuka Partners
Here's the digg address for the same Press Release for Bizzuka Partners post
… (3 comments)

Indiana Bill - Would cause problems for agents at closing - 02/19/08 09:19 AM
Of course that's my opinion, but I'd sure like all Indiana agents to weigh in
Indiana Bill would make closings crazy
I'm not even going to take the time to reproduce the entire post here, just jump over to the link and let me know what you think?
Are you interested in letting your buyers "slide" their closing, consequence free?  Not if you're a seller or seller's agent right?  Better wrigh in on this one professionals.  A lot of legislators make up "cute" ideas in bills and laws, and then we end up having to abide by them even though we didn't tell … (8 comments)

Wanna try twitter, worth the time - 02/13/08 12:22 PM
Chris Hedges, editor of Life in Northwest Indiana and beyond and Northwest Indiana Blogs, suggested last week that I write a longer than normal post on Twitter. You see, normally I try to grab the top ten or fifteen issues affecting Northwest Indiana for my sites, but occassionally write a longer post.With the birth of a Northwest Indiana blog community, I've been doing a lot more commenting and quick posting, so I readily accepted the challenge. I'll also be submitting this post to the NW Indiana Blog Carnival for this week. If you have a post for the carnival this week … (11 comments)

Top Active Rain Bloggers in NW Indiana - 02/09/08 04:55 PM
I'm a bit of a list person, I want to see who's who and who's making things happen.  It took a little work, since Active Rain looks at our Region as if it's three separate counties  But we all know the truth, the Region is one large area, called Chicago Southshore or NW Indiana or just The Region.
Here are the top bloggers, and real estate professionals in the area, I only included those over 10,000 points.  Kinda sad that was only 9 of us.
1.  Chuck Dellorto "Talk To Chuck" (68,455)  Real Estate in Lake County Active Rain RSS and outside blog … (9 comments)

Top 25 Home Builders on Active Rain - 02/09/08 03:59 PM
Once again let me say how disappointed I am that so few home builders, or new home sales professionals avail themselves of the network and SEO strengths of Active Rain.  From time to time I have posted the names and point totals of the top 25 Home Builder members of Active Rain, and frankly very few really make an effort.
So, if you know a home builder, or new home sales specialist, let them know the opportunity is wide open!
… (7 comments)

Do you use your RSS Reader? - 02/07/08 06:30 AM
I've been trying to make a more organized effort of my web experience each day, includiing using my RSS Reader more effectively.  I've used a couple different readers, but currently using Google Reader.
So what exactly is RSS and why Google Reader?  I'm no expert on these things, and frankly you can probably find some pretty terrific writers here on Active Rain.  But I know Northwest Indiana, and only pride myself on being the "hyper-local" expert here.  
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. … (12 comments)

Top Northwest Indiana Bloggers - 02/06/08 07:11 PM
 
Head over to this new Squidoo I set up and vote on the top Northwest Indiana Bloggers, or add your own, if I missed you.
Go to http://nwiblogs.com/ and submit your post for next week's blog carnival.
An exerpt from Chris Hedges: 
"I'm going to have to agree with Gary Mayor Rudy Clay that the Gary Chicago Airport should have a rail link from the South Shore line.
O'Hare and Midway airports are served by passenger rail service.
Linking the Gary Chicago airport to the South Shore increases its competitiveness by allowing passengers from Illinois and Indiana to travel to the airport without driving.  There … (0 comments)

Carnival of Northwest Indiana Bloggers - 02/06/08 06:20 PM
Wow, thanks to all the submitters this week, I can't tell you how excited I am to see a growing and challenging blogging community in Northwest Indiana. Steve <script src="http://blogcarnival.com/bc/logolink_17826.js" type="text/javascript"></script> Welcome to the February 6, 2008 edition of nwi blog carnival. Chris Hedges presents 10 Blogging Necessities posted at NWI Blogs, saying, "Here’s my list of the top 10 blogging necessities that took me a while to figure out. The list isn’t in any particular order, so something in the middle could be just as important as the top item." Larry Penilla presents Historic Fed Move Cuts Both Ways for … (0 comments)