Challenging real estate markets can be found across the U.S. as home prices decline, the volume of sales fall and foreclosures rise. But in some places the biggest challenge has been convincing would-be buyers and sellers that local conditions don’t resemble the national trends.

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April 22 is Earth Day.  I’m one of those believers in the phrase “Everyday is Earth Day”, but for those of you who may not have embraced such a mentality, I encourage you to at least notice tomorrow.

Is this thing on?

Sometimes I feel being active in the RE.net (I hate that term) is like preaching to the choir.  Most of the really active people are blogging on multiple sites, are on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and are utilizing a variety of electronic advertising.  I feel like I’m talking to myself.  Last Friday, on an RE Bar Camp call, someone else shared my mentality.

How many of you will mention Earth Day tomorrow?  Since I’m assuming many of you reading this are already reasonably environmentally friendly due to your online marketing efforts, I encourage you to bring someone else into the fold.  Get someone who isn’t a blogger, doesn’t know what RSS or Twitter is and especially get the people who are environmentally wasteful in their marketing practices to join the RE.net.

Show them ActiveRain, which I personally find to be an excellent tool for agents attempting to jump into the rapid currents of online real estate marketing.

Share with them your favorite sites and online tools.  It’s easier to talk about concepts you are passionate about, so pick the ones you like and talk one person into using them.

How a simple list can grow the conversation

Here’s my thought: Tomorrow is Earth Day, you share this article with someone on the pretense that you are promoting Earth Day, BAM! they’re in the RE.net conversation just by visiting Agent Genius.

Here are some great Earth Day resources that I want to share and hopefully you’ll share with others:

• How to green your life
• EarthDay network
• US Government Earth Day site (check out the links on the left under “Take Action”)
• Treehugger
• CatalogChoice
• StopTheJunkMail
• Get Fresh with Sara Snow (this is a TV show that gives great, easy to follow pointers for being green)

How Twitter is saving the world one lawn mower at a time

Now my one technology anecdote that plays perfectly into Earth Day.  I have become a Twitter fanatic, almost to an addictive level.  I turned it off all weekend (for the most part) and felt like I must have missed out on some great conversations.

Last week, I decided I wanted a push lawn mower for my yard.  I don’t have much grass, so a push mower wouldn’t take much time. Plus I could save my rotator cuff from the terrible pull cord on my gas mower. I thought about electric mowers, but coal still supplies half the energy in the US (I’m on 100% renewable, but if I can save that for something else, all the better).   Gas mowers create as much pollution as somewhere between 95 miles and 3400 miles of driving.  I did some research online, but was still feeling lost.  I sent a message out to the void of Twitter asking if anyone knew some place local to buy a push mower. Within minutes, a new contact sent me a message saying I could have hers, I just had to pick it up.

Skip to the end, I recycled something someone else was going to scrap. I saved fuel by swinging by on my way home instead of having a huge truck deliver it. I’m saving energy every time I mow my lawn.  And it cost me nothing but a few minutes to ask on Twitter and a few minutes to pick it up.  And all because I used technology.

So go out, share some of your favorite real estate marketing online resources.  Expand the conversation while helping contribute to Earth Day.

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Slumping housing market? Not on realty TV. The housing market’s effect on real estate-themed programming is far less pronounced. Audiences are holding up, and new shows albeit with less of a go-go feel are still being churned out.

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Recently the online real estate community began buzzing (because the media was buzzing) about an agent who was being sued for not disclosing material facts.  I read as some hypothesized, some passed judgement, and others invented names and scenarios to explain how they could see this become a trend. I remember reading and wondering why in the world would we assume the worst, disregard the fact that we do not know the facts, and jump on a bandwagon that could really care less about us as professionals- in fact, it’s a great headline when a Realtor is in trouble, and everyone needs someone to blame besides ones own self.In case you missed it, the Agent was cleared of any wrong doing last week and I thought it was important to demonstrate that maybe in these types of cases it would be best not to fuel the bandwagon that would blame agents for all the wrong in this economy- maybe we too should look forward to the facts and then write. You may have already heard, but I think it’s worth repeating over and over again. I’m just sayin…

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