To me Lenn Harley is a must read on the rain. I love the fact she is hard core real estate. Now when you talk to her on the phone..she will in fact tell you she writes hard core real estate and and she is hard core real estate. Imagine the delight when she agreed to do the Blogger's Choice Selections.
* * * * WARNING! HARD CORE REAL ESTATE AND BLOGGING TALK * * * *
What did you do before you became a real estate agent, Lenn?? "Raised five children. Raising five children is not easy. As a recent widow with five children, a German Shepherd Dog and a pet Rabbit, one learns to work hard and stay focused. Through various jobs and businesses including Government Contract Management for a Business School, proprietor of a Business School, Project Director for Urban Planning for a local college, several years in government service at the SEC Div. of Enforcement and FOIA, and finally proprietor of a company providing legal research and document services to local law firms."
"One of the law firms specialized in bankruptcy. Preserving real estate assets in bankruptcy required an understanding of the bankruptcy code and it also often included selling real estate. In the mid -1980s, a lot of folks were upside down with their real estate holdings with 1st, 2nd, and even 3rd trusts on residential and investment properties and work-out plans under chapter 13 and chapter 11 were my speciality which often included selling properties. This was where I got my first taste of real estate brokerage."
"The more things change, the more they stay the same. Selling real estate in the 1980s was not easy. Selling real estate in the 21st Century is not easy. The one constant for me was that the way to succeed is to work hard and stay focused."
How did you find activerain? "In 1994, I discovered the Internet. I had recently left a mega broker and joined a small independent firm that permitted me to practice buyer agency, which the large listing company did not. My first web site went live in June of 1995. That Internet presence has grown over the years to a significant asset for real estate business production."
"For many years beginning in about 1996, I was a subscriber to the RealTalk an on-line, e-mail based real estate forum. Over the years, that forum and the wonderful real estate friends I made were my "lifeline" to real estate practices across the country. Blogging was not my forte. I had tried the RealTalk/RealTown blog format and found it lacking or required more patience than I had to work through the early bugs."
"By this time, I had a dynamic and productive Internet presence that had produced sufficient business to be the primary lead resource for 10-15 agents since about 1998. In August of 2006, I received an e-mail invitation from Maureen Francis to join ActiveRain and the rest is history."
You write hard core real estate, what 1 piece of advice should a seller take from you? "There is a buyer for every piece of real estate on the market IF the price is right. Price is a combination of recent local sales, terms, condition and location. It takes an experienced agent to understand these dynamics to successfully and continually list and sell homes."
What 1 piece of advice should a buyer take from you? "On-line real estate is not a reliable resource for finding the best home for your price, location of choice. A brief description of a property on a web page cannot substitute for a tour of these home listings in person with an experienced Buyer's Agent who understands the value, condition and amenities and how that dynamic works to price properties for sale."
If you could pick one tip to give to industry professionals whether blogging tip or real estate tip what tip would it be? "You are running a business. Get up and go to work every morning. Don't wait for the business to come to you."
Can you give us a few seo tips? "Read and follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines."
What do you consider good writing? "Articles that read like someone would sound speaking."
Why Blogger's Choice Selections? "My Goodness, why not?? We who really work at our Internet presence realize the value of ActiveRain. Featured articles stay on the dash board far longer than others. The shelf life of a featured article is several days. The shelf life of an article that isn't featured is about 15 minutes. With the exception of folks who subscribe to your blog, you are unlikely to be read if you're article isn't featured.
SO, Blogger's Choice gives us a "second bite at the apple". We can include our unfeatured articles in Blogger's Choice and have it read and receive comments again.
Ok, what 2 posts that you wrote you felt worthy of featuring and sharing with entire community? There are a lot more than 2 posts that I thought should have been featured. I understand why being featured is hard with so many wonderful posts. This gets to the very heart of what is ActiveRain?"
Is it a real estate network?? Or, is it a social network?? "For me, it's a real estate network with a public side, Localism. For many it is a social network. When hard core real estate articles are passed over to feature posts about members social life, which are valuable, interesting and sometimes fun, they can't replace the value of articles that contribute to the professionalism of real estate, mortgage lending, staging, home inspections,etc. I'm really looking for a time when the ActiveRain posts will be bifurcated into two sub-sites, one for social networking and one for hard core real estate networking."
Now Lenn could not pick two and neither could I so I used a few of her suggested posts..
SELLERS NEED TO LISTEN TO BUYERS - THE SILENCE IS SPEAKING VOLUMES
ACTIVE RAIN MEMBERS UNDERSTAND BLOGGING FOR SUCCESS! IT'S ALL ABOUT SYNERGY DEBUNKING THE BUNK ABOUT BABY-BOOMER BROKERS AND AGENTS AND THE INTERNET
MAKING A GOOD IMPRESSION WITH A HOME BUYER AT THE FIRST MEETING
SHORT SALES? FORECLOSURES? THEY ARE BRINGING FIRST TIME HOME BUYERS BACK INTO THE MARKET IN MY AREA.
PLAGIARISM, COPYRIGHT AND GOOGLE JUICE
Lenn will be making her selections and will post them up on April Fool's Day...so get your selections in any post that was never featured and join the Blogger's Choice Selections Group today!
EDIT ****** EDIT *******UPDATE*****UPDATE***EDIT***EDIT*** UPDATE****UPDATE****EDIT*
Read Lenn's take on the Blogger's Choice Selections Group
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Wow Midori, this is wonderful. I'm so glad Lenn is in the spotlight. I must admit though, I would of never guessed she had a pet rabbit:-)