I wanted to start blogging on my website. As a new agent I'm not really sure what I have to say. I was wondering where current real estate bloggers get their insperation and ideas to talk about.

I am new to it as well. I have done posts on my listings, one at a time. I have started posts on market trends. I am going to do some non real estate related blogs too, mostly light hearted stuff, nothing heavy. Perhaps post about local events, charity causes, etc. Browse other blogs for ideas, but I would be careful to use your own content.

I like to play around with the MLS to come up with ideas too. Make a poitn of jotting down your ideas as you are out and about so you do not forget them.

Some people are natural thinkers and writers and other are not.

I read the news quickly for the day in about 10 minutes online from various news feeds to my inbox.From that I can easily come up with at least 4 things daily to blog about although I don't do it that much.

One great thing for new agents is for you to blog and learn at the same time.You can buy a book or go to Barnes and Noble and read a book and write down ideas from that.

I bought one book on land development which is 400 pages long.I can pull ideas for years on things to blog about just in that book. Hope it helps.

Yeah, orginally I thought of just reading other blogs and coming up with ideas but I am afraid that I would be using theirs as my own and I don't want to take credit for anothers ideas.
I do like the books idea, though I'm far from an avid reader. I'll try focusing on this and ad a twist of my humor along with my point of view and see what I come up with.

Thanks for the insperation super and doin'

Blog about your LOCAL area. Events, new listings, things you have seen while out showing houses or driving around.

Blog about the questions your customers ask you.

Always tie everything in somehow to your local real estate market and to you.

Other good blogging topics include examples of what things to watch out for as new home buyers. For example, maybe take some snapshots of "problem areas" in houses that you visit like cracked foundations, trees growing out of foundations, what various molds look like, etc. Many homebuyers seem to be concerned about "big problem" areas like this even though most don't know why they are concered about it.

Perky is right! Also, if there is a news story about the national market, do a post on your local market and how it compares nationally.

Blogging can be fun, I have two blogs. One of which is general for both buyers and sellers, and then I have a psoterous blog which I use as a photo blog for my local market...it could appeal mostly to buyers or people from outside the area that may be looking to move to my area. You don't have to rack your brain coming up with profound content, it comes with time and consistency. Most important is originality and not just throwing out a statistic, but backing it up with the supporting data....good luck

yes MrsSea!!! No topic will be "good" if it doesn't attract folks interested in YOUR area. You don't want general interest blogs - you want specific interest. So take a general thing and put a local spin on it....

I think it depends on your niche. My niche is first time home buyers and you can see from my blog link below how I come up with subject matter. A few other ideas...

1. The NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is free to REALTORS®. Read over it and the juices will start flowing. It revealed that one of the biggest barriers to buyers buying is their pre-conceived idea that mortgages are hard to get. Why not write a post on the process there in PA?

2. Tell a story about a target community where there are lots of properties for sale. You could go and speak with some neighbors in the community about what they like about it.

3. What kinds of promotions are being run by Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HUD or my favorite, down payment assistance programs? Why not write a post that shows your expertise in those areas?

Still working on some ideas to get sellers to call. Perhaps something along that expresses the value of a CMA. Here in GA, tax valuations will be mailed yearly now and sellers will need to have a resource to challenge an incorrect valuation. This could be an entry to establishing a relationship with an owner.

On FSBOs, why not write an article asking them to email or call you with the details of their property for sale. Again, it gets you on the phone with them and who knows, you may actually have a buyer for them one day. The idea is to stay top of mind when they've decided to hire someone.

And I think one of the big "don'ts" in blogging is to refrain from writing rants about agents, potential customers or anything else.

I see a lot of blog posts on Active Rain that consist of an agent (or home inspector or mortgage officer) writing about what someone else did on a transaction that was wrong (or they feel was wrong).

You want the audience to connect with you in a positive manner, so writing about home buying or home selling in a positive manner may convince them that you are the expert in the field that can get the job done.

Yes, for heaven's sake do NOT rant about CUSTOMERS and CLIENTS or their families - even if you "anonymize" it...

I can't believe people actually do that........ What morons

I wrote a Members Only Blog on AR about it a long time ago titled "Are you losing business because of your blog?" - was driving me INSANE! The blogger that inspired it was going on and on about her listing's neighbor (a house she was trying to list for sale!) and how the neighbor's son was a slob, a good for nothing, junk collector, lazy bum, etc. Unreal!!

Potential customers look at that and think "Oh my goodness, what would she write about OUR house?" and never call her...

Blogging for real estate is not for RANTING unless you are retired from the business and are writing an entertainment blog...

Hey, one more idea. Check out the free Google keyword selector tool. Type in some relevant keywords, maybe YourCity, PA Real Estate or something like that and see what terms people are searching on both globally and locally. It might spark some ideas about content.

Why not get an Active Rain account? You can reblog a lot of other peoples posts on it and just add in a paragraph of your own thoughts on the topic.

It would be kind of like blogging with training wheels on but you ended up with good content and you can figure out how get your own content as you go.