As I’m sure any of the authors of this blog could attest, more consumers are ‘interviewing’ Realtors by reading their blog posts before they ever pick up the phone to make contact.  The Washington Post published an article yesterday in their Real Estate section titled “Making Connections: Web 2.0 Creates New Ways for Agents, Home Shoppers to Find Each Other“, and mentioned three of our VARBuzz authors in the article.

• Consumer’s comment about Bob Carney, author of FocusOnFrederick.com:

“I’d been told to never pick a Realtor out of a hat, but I feel like Bob was recommended to us out of the comments on the Internet,” she said. “I just remember reading Bob and going ‘Oh, yeah. He’s the one.’”

• Another homebuyer was quoted after working with Danilo Bogdanovic, author of LoudounScene.com and LoudounForeclosures.com:

“It came down to these other two agents. I didn’t know anything about them,” Shields said. Bogdanovic “was the only one you could get a personality from.”

• A client of Frank Llosa, author of blog.franklyrealty.com, said:

“When I read Frank’s stuff, I was really impressed by what he knew,” said Yeow, a government health scientist. “I realized he was in Northern Virginia and that sealed the deal.”

The article also touches on the pros and cons of using Redfin, as well as how consumers are looking to LinkedIn for recommendations, or perusing agents’ responses to questions on Trulia Voices to gauge their expertise in different market areas.  From personal experience I can attest that clients have picked me after deciding that my personality (as evidenced by my blog writing) was a good fit for theirs.

The quotes of these happy clients reinforces the idea that your blog is your ‘voice’ to connect with consumers.  Impressive that the three Realtors named in the article were all Buzz contributors… Kudos to Bob, Danilo, and Frank!

Cheers,

Heather