Lydia's Blog: All Categories

If you have ever wondered how to get good strong one-way links to your real estate website, I would like to share some very easy ways to do so.  Here is a short list of methods to get those ever desired links to your online real estate shingle, in no particular order:

• Do the world some good and donate on Kiva.  This is a website that lets you donate to entrepreneurs the world over.  It can do your heart good, and create great one way links like this here or this one here.
• Buy a word on thebigwordproject.com.  This is a viral marketing experiment that lets you link words to websites, like the word 'listing'.  The cost? $1 per letter.  OK, not free, but pretty close.
• Use squidoo.  You can create free pages that even generate income, like…

The Palmetto Challenge over at my Elegant Blog is starting to get some attention.  I've got a few entries and a few more people are promising to enter soon.  Being the inaugural winner of a world-wide blogging contest will be quite the feather (should I say palm leaf?) in the cap of whoever wins!

Not only that, but the competition took less than an hour to coat the front page of Google for the term 'Palmetto Challenge'.  The initial REW blog post announcement was there too, but fell off, but my own blog shows multiple times. 

That same link strength will soon be pointing to a few worthy contenders and one amazing winner, so polish those pencils (or keyboards) and knock out some good content.

Remember you have until Friday May 2nd to nominate your…

Hello my fellow real estate bloggers!  Are you up for a challenge?  How about a Palmetto State Challenge?

While I'm the proud proprietor, etc, and etc, of the Elegant Augusta Real Estate Blog, located in Augusta Georgia, I also do business in, and more importantly live, in South Carolina...the Palmetto State.

I'm throwing the gauntlet down to you...Submit your favorite real estate blog post of the week to me at the Blog.  Just send me a link to your entry using my contact form.  I'll link up my leading contenders in an end of the week post.  The following week, in a special blog post, using a special algorithm developed by me, Matt Cutts, and the Google Pigeons, I will announce the blog post I liked the best.

The winner will not only get a link to…

Today I made my first lens on Squidoo.  So I thought I would add my thoughts on this social networking resource.

How I found out about Squidoo.
I had read a few things about Squidoo, mainly on a long REW forum thread about it.  It's a site where you can make your own pages, kind of like MySpace or Facebook.  The twist for Squidoo is that the individual pages are called 'lenses'.  And you can make as many lenses as you want.

I wasn't really interested in Squidoo, because every time I visited a lens, it was covered in ads.  It looked spammy and unprofessional.  I decided that while there might be some SEO benefit to it, it just wasn't worth my time.

Then the other day I found out that Joe Lane, who posts under the name 'Spoken Gently' here on REW,… Read Full Post

Hello fellow webmasters and Realtors!  I just published an article on my blog that I have been working on (well off & on) for a couple of weeks now.  Like many of us, I have been very frustrated with doom and gloomers talking about the slump in the real estate market.  I am of the opinion that this is a regional or even local phenomenon. 

We can always draw generalities at the national level: however this can be misleading at best and downright wrong at worst.

At any rate, we here in the two-state area of Georgia and South Carolina, in the metro Augusta region, have not seen much of a downturn in the market.  I've written a very detailed post about it here:  Popping the Bubble: Disproving the 'National' Real Estate Collapse.

I hope you'll take a… Read Full Post

DROP THOSE TOOLS! Before you convert that garage into your very own 70’s Disco Theater or install wall to wall teal carpeting, I want you to stop and think about what you are doing.

I know that teal carpet will complement your pastel pink and floral couch perfectly (!) But first you should ask yourself, “If I have to sell the day after I install the carpet, do I expect to get my money back?”

Really the acid test to any home improvement is whether or not you expect to get your money back. I like to put all home improvements into one of 3 categories:

• Maintenance
• Home Improvements to enhance the value of the home
• Home Improvements to enhance your lifestyle

Maintenance can range anywhere from painting the hallway to replacing…

Wow, check out this article that appeared in the Augusta Chronicle today!!

It seems the rest of the country is getting hip to something Augustans have known for years.

Bizjournals, the online division of American City Business Journals, named Augusta the nation's most affordable metro housing market after analyzing income and housing costs for 95 metro areas with populations of 500,000 or more.

Housing costs in the Augusta-Richmond County metro area, which includes Richmond, Columbia, Burke, McDuffie, Aiken and Edgefield counties, consume only 17.4 percent of monthly income, compared with 27 percent nationally, according to a March 5 Bizjournals article on the study.

"Compared to the rest of the world, (Augusta) is exceedingly cheap," said Ryan…

Deciding to sell your home is an enormous decision for you and your family, but I can help make it an easy transition. 
 
Preparing your home for sale - whether you choose to use an agent, or you decide to sell it on your own - is extremely important.  For buyers a first impression is everything, and if the home is cluttered or smells bad that can adversely affect your ability to sell the home.  Below are a few tips on how to prepare your home for sale.

Detach your emotions.
Your goal is to create spaces in which as many people as possible will be able to envision their potential home.  Reminders of your life will distract potential buyers from that.  To properly prepare your home for sale, pack away your personal items, including photos,… Read Full Post