Building a Commercial Real Estate Blog
We've been very impressed with the Blogger Apprentices after the first week... bravo to the coaches!
For Project Blogger, London and I have been working on Future of Commercial in a different vein than the residential Project Bloggers. There have been several attempts at commercial real estate blogs - search "commercial" in Grow-a-Brain's extensive archive of real estate blogs that span over the last three years - only 5 show up, and only one, Adam Commercial Real Estate, St Paul still remains posting, albeit intermittently...
We think there are a few reasons why commercial real estate has been a blogging challenge thus far:
- Commercial brokers don't need to reach a consumer audience, their networks tend to be tighter knit. Blogging for networking, like Active Rain folks do, is not as essential to their business development.
- Commercial brokers think that writing about commercial business tends to be too esoteric, even boring.
- Finally, there are no commercial real estate blog models to imitate...
London and I are first focusing on the "business model" of commercial real estate blogging. The objectives:
- Mission is to educate residential agents on how to go commercial - we want to attract residential agents and investor readers along with the commercial real estate professionals.
- Provide a social networking venue for the commercial broker community, nationwide.
- By providing a networking venue with multi-blog capability, Future will provide commercial brokers online visibility based on their focus market - San Francisco, San Jose, LA, etc.
We'll also add widgets too, but we're going step by step in the apprenticeship.
We're developing a unique blog that will hopefully evolve into a new community for commercial real estate... Please subscribe...
Technorati Tags: project blogger, blogging, future of commercial
Pat, the challenges you face with a commercial blog site are certainly much different than those being faced by the other Project Blogger teams. I think your mission is excellent and the concept for providing a networking venue is right on target!
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The reality is that commercial real estate brokers are largely not on the web. I have a blog the deals exclusively with commercial real estate topics http://blog.mysquarefeet.com and it is an outgrowth of my 20 years experience in the business and my commercial real estate listing service www.mysquarefeet.com. It is starting to gain some traction, but it is taking much longer than it should. While residential real estate agents have embraced the power of the web, commercial agents and property owners are still in the gate. Commercial real estate can be interesting and I am sure a lot of newbies would love to hear of experiences that veterans have had so they could shorten their learning curve...if they would just get on the web and share!
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I think the concept of a commercial blog is difficult to grasp, but there is one particular blog I read that is well written, regularly posts, and has a broad array of topics. It's focused on Silicon Valley and a lot of the articles don't necessarily apply to my market (unfortunately since it is good writing), but I do have it on my RSS reader and every few posts there is something i enjoy reading or learning about.
I'm not sure who it is run by but it's called Square Feet and the URL is www.squarefeetblog.com
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Sounds like a great challenge with plenty of opportunity and room for growth.
I work for Wallhogs and we just began making Wallhogs for some realtors to use for their advertising and marketing. Is this something that would work in your industry? You'll have my email now, let me know if this is something that you'd be interested in hearing more about. I can show you some examples and explain anything that needs explaining.
Thanks,
Scott at Wallhogs">www.wallhogs.com/">Wallhogs
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Hi,
As a mortgage lender, I am starting a blog in the near future to serve my existing and potential customers and I am doing my research on current blogs related to the industry. I like your layout and unique theme - I'll definitely return for more visits.
Thank you!
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Wow...had no idea of the dearth of commercial real estate blogs. I just started my own recently, though from a lawyer's perspective, and look forward to reading more from you!
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I can't wait for this
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I can't wait to see what you guys come up with. Commercial real estate is such a different animal than residential.
Rob Beland, Apex Properties
Leominster, MA
Commercial Real Estate Professional
The Real Estate TrendMill
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Great article on the real estate happenings, I really enjoy reading your posts. Just for your information, Donald Trump is in big trouble right now with his real estate empire. I hope everyone can pull through this slump!!
Elmo
">http://www.expertrealtorweb.com"> Real Estate Professional
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I think your concept sounds great. One area you may want to consider adding is a "doghouse" for investors to post blogs about so-called "gurus" in commercial real estate, offering seminars or investment groups. If little or no success has been recorded within these groups - just money taken with no results - people can be warned. These groups prey on people who want to get into the commercial real estate field and are willing to invest money to do it. These people include attorneys, residential real estate agents, business owners, residential real estate investors wanting to diversify in a struggling residential market, parents wanting flexibility to work yet spend time with their kids. All these dreams are sold by such groups for 10's of thousands of dollars. One such group is CVI or Commercial Ventures International. Their websites are cvitoday.com and submitthedeal.com. Many friends of mine and I fell for this scheme and have nothing to show for it. The owner's name is Dale Kilgus and his wife is Debbie Kilgus, and they offer themselves up as Christians as part of their marketing efforts as well as their on-going deceptions. Their students have absolutely no success record, but they continues to market falsely stating testimonials that lead you to believe that they have achieved success. They have used actual initials of students who have confirmed that they have nothing to show for the program other than $20,000-30,000 less in their bank accounts. Dale Kilgus filed for bankruptcy in 2004 (public record), and refuses to provide any personal information, details on past projects or where his residence is. While partnering with Jeff Kaller, They took an estimated $600,000 or more from 25+ people to become part of a mentoring program for which the members have received nothing but bi-monthly 2 page Email newsletters and a few sporadic conference calls where 90% of the time technical difficulties ended the call after 15-20 frustrating minutes and where the members did the majority of the talking about their deals. He has never shared any details of any deals he has done. He has taught little to nothing to these members. 18 months after taking their money, he put up a worthless website where he deletes entries from students where they ask honest questions about where the program is going. He has even deactivated certain members' accounts to avoid this. This is what you get for your investment. Many of the members have held their own calls and discovered that they agree with the failure of this program. Actions are beginning against him via the St. Augustine, FL Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General's office, so hopefully his activities will cease within the next year. However, until then, people need to be duly warned. It is these types of stories that need to be posted in a "doghouse" to allow others to research companies prior to providing any money. For more info on this company, Email [email protected].
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Hello RP! I'm behind you 100% and I can confirm that the statements about Dale and CVI are, in fact, true. I no longer attend the calls, since they were a complete waste of time, and have no idea what is going on with any projects or people, since Dale has not held a conference call for our group in months. The last one I attended did, in fact, have major technical problems and I gave up. I hear he has a website, but I also heard it is a waste of time, too, since there are no real facts on any projects or any real help of any kind. I am focusing on my residential business for now, and am interested in getting a refund - if there is a possibility. Then I will look for something more helpful. Of anyone has any suggestions, feel free to share. Any commercial programs worth investing in? Or is it better to find a broker who represents you and who you can trust to break down numbers for you cash-flow wise? Is there such a broker? Anyway - would also like to hear if you have discussed a class action lawsuite with any of the other members. Maybe on a contingency basis. The percentage would be good for an attorney possibly. 25% of $600,000 = $150,000. I'd settle for 50-75% of my share. Take care, and way to go! Been wondering if anyone was as PO'd about this as I am. Maybe I'll call a few of the other members... What's going on with Stacy and Darlene's so-called projects? I heard they don't know the status of the projects because the contracts are in Dale's/CVI's name and he has total control. Nice...
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I agree that commercial Realtors and owners are not embracing the power of internet marketing as they should. I am searching for additional exposure for properties that I am currently leasing and found the site "City Feet" in a Google search. Does anyone have an opinion as to the viability of this site for marketing professional office space. City Feet is apparently owned and operated by Loopnet. Am I wasting my time paying for a limited presence on this site?
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You're right it is own by Loopnet.
Here's a new site about to go National called BuilderBrokerNetwork.com. They're offering FREE Listings and Wants and Needs Postings.
Here's the ad they sent me:
For a limited time offer, sign up for a FREE Membership at BuilderBrokerNetwork.com (http://www.builderbrokernetwork.com) and post Active Listings & Wants/Needs at no charge. When submitting your Active Listing or Wants/Needs use the following PROMOTIONAL CODE on the Submit page:
free559023
BuilderBrokerNetwork.com is a proven network source linking Builders, Brokers, and all Commercial Real Estate Professionals together in a unified online marketplace. Our innovative marketing solutions include eMail Broadcasting, Wants & Needs ePostings, and Active Listing Solutions to help you successfully promote your properties to thousands of Commercial Real Estate Professionals.
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Try BuilderBrokerNetwork.com
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Nice Article
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The truth is commercial realty in NYC is a very competitive market and therefore many firms do not know how to properly maintain their public persona and conduct business efficiently. I have had a lot of experience in dealing with buying and leasing www.normanbobrow.com/case_studies">Manhattan">http://www.normanbobrow.com/case_studies">Manhattan Commercial Office Space and have found that only very few companies have well earned reputations. Recently I have been doing business with Norman Bobrow & Co and have found that their 25 years of experience has been well earned. Anyone seeking to buy, lease or even just infer about the current commercial real estate market should try www.normanbobrow.com
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You have an old post that I have come across, but here is my comment in the event this is still active.
My partners and I have extensive commercial financing backgrounds and/or acquisition/diposition experience. Would you care to incorporate what we're doing into your program?
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Well, if the blog is down, then maybe room to start anew? We may be interested in chatting with you. Visit http://www.palmbeachequities.net. After over 20 years in business this brokerage is just catching up with web marketing but interested in contributing to blogs too.
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We, too are interested in blogging about commercial real estate. Our current actions are investigatory in nature and we are visiting as many CRE blog sites as possible.
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I am trying to investigate as many commercial real estate blogs and websites as I can as I seek to build up my web presence as well.
Please come to my blog at www.CommercialRealEstateAthens.com and see what is going on in my market. The blog is brand new so be gentle, and be patient.
Semper Fi,
Terry Hand
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I think this is a great topic. I am new to blogging, and in the process of launching a blog for the Single Tenant Retail investor. I am still tweaking the color scheme and template - so excuse the dust.... - and I am just starting to post entries. Come and visit and tell me what you think. I am wanting to turn this into a truly useful blog.
allrealestateinvesting.com/singletenantretail/
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Almost-Daily Commercial Real Estate Blog posted its first Blog Sept. 26, 2007 and reports on current financial announcements as they relate to commercial real estate leasing, sales and financing...when CitiCorp laid off 52,000 workers it reported on how much office vacancy would result...ahead of the curve predictions like the upcoming Triple Whammy to cities and counties reeling from the housing depression, disappearing revenues from retail sales tax and auto tax and if commercial buildings either start going into foreclosure or major portfolios go to market at prices 30% less than what they were valued in 2006 this may trigger reassessments in states which allow property tax reductions when the values go down...http://jeffreyweil.blogspot.com/
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