Food for Fodder

If you blog, or write at all, then writer's cramp can all too often be your scapgoat for justifying the long period of time between your blogs.

Real estate professionals get it too. It's that feeling of drawing a blank, and batting around ideas you one by one systematically shoot down.  Inspiration is lacking, perhaps because you need new thoughts, new topic suggestions. If that is the case, this post is for you!

Real Estate Tomato's Teresa Boardman penned 101 topics real estate agents could blog about to establish a rapport with their current and future clients. Feel free to read her list and be inspired to widen your blog's horizon and write around some of these topics. Experiement with something new!

"In my last post on the Tomato I wrote about writing being the biggest obstacle for real estate professionals who want to have a blog.  Some of our readers commented that figuring out what to write about poses the greatest challenge."

It is hard for many to come up with topics so I wrote a list of 101 topic ideas for real estate professionals who want to have a blog to expand their internet presence and to meet the home buyers and sellers who live inside their computer. 

Potential clients are in your computer right now and are looking for great agents and lenders to work with. The idea is to build enough rapport so they will stop hiding and give us a call or send an email. Lets face it, consumers believe we all have horns and a tail and we need to put them at ease and establish a little credibility before we can earn their trust and their business.

The best posts come from the every day life of a real estate professional. There is also what I call “the real estate bloggers conundrum”: If we spend too much time writing, we don't have time to sell real estate, if we don't sell real estate, we don't have those experiences to write about. Our day-to-day lives and experiences in the real estate industry are filled with blog food, look for it, find it and start typing. 

Here are 101 ideas:

1. A story about your neighborhood
2. Local business, and send them a copy
3. Your pet
4. Go through your email, is there a question or comment from one of your clients that can be made into a post?
5. Listen  to your buyers, they give you blog food
6. Listen to your sellers, they give you blog food
7. Conversations with other agents can be a source of great content
8. Architecture or housing styles in your area
9. Historic buildings
10. Market statistics for your area, including average prices and absorption rates

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11. Read the blogs and look for ideas to build on or spin a new idea from
12. Take a picture write a post
13. Home maintenance
14. Take a walk
15. Senior housing
16. Pet  friendly housing
17. Staging ideas
18. local events
19. Your hobby
20. A closing
21. A lender who did a great job
22. Things that go wrong with real estate sales
23. Home owners insurance
24. Gardening and landscaping
25. Your city council
26. A new development
27. Lofts
28. Decorating ideas
29. Real estate industry news - with your own unique commentary
30. Mortgages news
31. Interest Rates
32. Credit scores
33. Consumer hoaxes and scams
34. First time home buyer programs
35. Working with seniors
36. Working with Baby Boomers
37. Second homes
38. Investment properties
39. Foreclosure
40. Property flipping
41. "Rehabbing" a home
42. Home energy conservation
43. Final walk through
44. Equity stripping scams
45. Agency
46. Real estate companies
47. Transportation & Parking
48. Schools
49. Churches
50. Day Care
51. Paint and painting

51. Pest control
52. Good neighbors
53. Bad neighbors
54. Over priced homes
55. The home buying process
56. The home selling process
57. Book review of a real estate related book
58. Real Estate Laws
59. Real estate terms
60. Moving with children
61. Moving
62. Moving with pets
63. Places to eat
64. Places to shop
65. Commentary on local news stories
66. Commentary on local public policy
67. Tell a story about a client who was fun to work with
68. Write about what it is like to be  a Realtor
69. When taking classes find something you learned that could be used as a post
70. Write off topic humor
71. Environmental issues
72. Land lord or tenant issues
73. How to sell a house
74. How not to sell a house
75. Building trends
76. Parks
77. Art
78. Home safety
79. Review web sites on local or real estate related topics

81. Property taxes
82. Crime
83. Open houses
84. Trends in kitchen design
85. Area events for children
86. The local zoo
87. Where to play golf
88. Coffee shops
89. Women home buyers
90. Advice for FSBO's
91. Interview some one
92. Local  real estate market trends and observations
93. Furniture
94. Investment scams
95. Mortgage fraud
96. Types of mortgages
97. Home owners associations
98. Attend a public meeting and write about it
99. Weekend getaways
100. Credit repair
101. Fair housing issues

They may look kind of dry and boring in this list but the trick is to take every day experiences, based on these topics and weave them into a post. There are times for most of us when we just can't write but there are some work-arounds.  Find a photo and write about it, have a guest write a post or take a break from it for a couple of days. 

Teresa Boardman is a professional Realtor in the St. Paul, Minnesota area.

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