Eric Blackwell's Blog: All Categories

When I first moved here to Southern indiana from California, my wife told me two very important things about the area, #1--We would ALWAYS live in Indiana and #2--the area around Louisville that I had come to know as Kentuckiana was to be referred to as Indi-ucky...an obvious slap at my friends from Louisville.
i have since heard so many things back and forth about the two that I thought I do a little comparison of my own:

Fact #1--Taxes are lower in Southern Indiana. That's not an opinion, it is what it is. the government take less of your money there.

Fact #2--Schools are good in BOTH areas, but the BEST way to compare schools is to look at the specific school and not the district.

Fact #3--Both areas are VERY good in regards to the cost of… Read Full Post

On the wall in the offices of RE/MAX Properties East in Louisville Kentucky hangs a sign:

"The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack."

For 20 years, they have thrived on the notion that the basic economic unit of the real estate sales industry is the brokerage. A patriarchal broker built a caring staff and helped agents develop thriving businesses of their own, and yet all hunted together by buying space as a group in newspapers and other marketing ventures, sharing office expenses in lieu of the agent getting an ever increasing share of the commissions. It has worked and worked well.

As brokers in general are aging and looking toward retirement, franchise chains are looking to grow, agents are looking to increase…

I know you are bracing for "My best FSBO advice is to use a REALTOR". You are cringing at the thought, thinking that Thousands of MY dollars are at stake here. You'd be right. Choosing to go FSBO (For Sale By Owner) means that you are choosing to do some or in many cases ALL or the work yourself... So let's look at it a piece at a time and see which pieces you REALLY want to take on and which you'd prefer to leave to a full service REALTOR.

Pricing--The simple? act of deciding how much you home is worth can be difficult. Lately the market has been all over the place. Some markets are up! Many are down. What you need here is an HONEST and FACTUAL answer about where things stand relative to the location AND CONDITION of your home. And bear in mind that this…

Is it possible to be posted out?  (grin)

After a ton of well thought out posts (at least that's what I attempted!), I am suffering from being posted out. It is kind of like fatigue of the creativity muscle in the brain. We no longer get writer's block. We don't have time.

In today's world of post. publish. post. publish. research. post . publish, it is VERY difficult to be prolific all of the time. Sooner or later the juices run dry and you have to stop and let your body have some rest and your head and heart get some perspective.

Maybe if I take a day or two off, the crativity will return --or maybe just a little bit of reading and relaxation will help.

Nah. I think I can work through it (grin).

OK guys...unvarnished opinion time. (Warning long post ahead!)

Here are some things to consider BEFORE going down the "let's SPAM the hell out of other forums and blogs and sites road" (Which we already seem to be well on the onramp of in the SEO world today for those who haven't been reading the road signs )

Consideration 1: Q.Why does SPAM exist?  A. Because it does (or at least DID) work at one time. (We likely all agree on that) What was at one time mainstream is now considered bad form in many cases.

Consideration 2: And then there is the consideration for HOW long it will work --which DIRECTLY relates to the longevity of my site STAYING at the top.

Consideration 3: Does it still generate the value it once did? MANY older tactics (now… Read Full Post

Yesterday, I received an email from a friend. It told me of a local girl scout here in Louisville who was taking on raising awareness of autism in a unique way. They had seen an article in the paper about her. For one of her girl scout projects, she built a website, had a Kentucky license plate designed and was going on a publicity campaign to get the 900 needed license plates purcjhased to get them to make the Autism specialty license plate an official specialty license plate option. Take a look at the webpage here.

This kind of effort from a 16 year old was pretty cool to see in my book.

I have never been a girl scout.... but If this is the kind of character that they build into kids, then I am all for it.

For those who may not know it about me, my…

I am writing this as a parent--a dad- with four kids. Two of my kids have special needs. One of my other kids is VERY gifted and needs to be in an accelerated settign to challenge him or he will get bored. My daughter is the fourth kdis and she is mroe or less a typical 5th grader. My wife works as an assistant is a special needs class at school as well.

I am telling you that because I want you to understand where I am coming from. I see THOUSANDS of families move to and from Louisville each year as part of my work  with the real estate firm. So how do they decide WHERE to live...WHAT schools to send their kids to and etc.?

Most people (whent hey get transferred or a job brings them to the Louisville area), they worry about the schools. They wonder about…

Are you REALLY ready to invest?

Most of the self help real estate investment books out there make real estate investing look EASY. And to some degree they are right. It IS easy to buy real estate at a LITTLE bit off of retail. However, after the purchase is where things get sticky.

A REALTOR friend of mine, Anne Mayhugh and I were discussing this a couple of days ago. Most people who start into investing are SOMEWHAT prepared to buy. Most are NOT prepared to manage. Real estate ivesting is every bit as much about management as it is about buying. What do I mean? Here are some examples that they (usually) do not provide in the "everything you need to know " manuals:

You buy a property with the intention of flipping it and selling it quickly. The market…