They’re Here! We’ve Launched BiggerPockets Blogs!

In last week’s newsletter, we told you some of the reasons to blog. Now that we’ve officially launched BiggerPockets Blogs, I’d like to share some of the great features of our blogging system, along with some great reasons to get blogging on BiggerPockets.

Some Reasons to Set Up a Blog with BiggerPockets Blogs Include:

1. It’s EASY - Setting up a blog takes less than a minute, and you never need to know any HTML or other code to use the blog. Easily upload images or YouTube videos, alter your fonts and post layouts, and more using our WYSIWYG (Whay You See is What You Get) blog creator!
2. Customizable Layouts - We’ve made customizing the layout of your blog, quick and easy. Choose your own colors, layout design (more layouts coming soon), sidebar additions and create a blog that fits your personality.
3. Widget Ready - Got a widget that you must have on your blog? Members can simply paste the widget code into our Blog customizer and viola!
4. SEO Ready - Our blogs are search engine optimized so inclusion in Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN, etc should be fast and effortless.
5. Instant Publicity - All Bloggers with a BiggerPockets Blog will have the opportunity to have their blog and profile promoted across our site. Those bloggers who are more active in their posts and comments will be promoted on our stats page and elsewhere. Additionally, members profiles are promoted to the search engines (unless you request profile privacy), and just having an account on our site allows you to be found by millions of people in the real estate world!
6. Communicate with other Bloggers with Trackbacks - With our trackback system, by simply linking to posts of other bloggers in your articles, both on BiggerPockets and off, our system will notify them, and you’ll instantly let them know that you find their article relevant. Its a great way to stay in touch with other bloggers and let them know that their content is important to you.
7. Build an Audience with Blog and Comment Subscriptions - both BiggerPockets members and visitors can subscribe to your blog or individual articles, either through RSS feeds or email subscriptions. Your audience can easily be automatically notified whenever you post new content, or whenever someone adds to a conversation in the comments of your blog.
8. Save Your Favorite Posts Across BiggerPockets Blogs - We’ve established a system for members to be able to save any post on the site that interests them. Once saved, you can easily find your favorite saved blog posts in your dashboard.
   Promote yourself, your real estate ideologies and thoughts
9. Ping the World - Automatically ping the world upon publication of a new post. Pinging notifies blog search engines and directories that you’ve got a new post, and helps them keep the most up to date records of your content.
10. Make Money - We saved the best for last! BiggerPockets members have the opportunity to make money with their blogs by adding advertising. BiggerPockets does not show any ads on member’s blogs. Instead, we’ve created specific ad slots where you can add advertisements from Google AdSense, Yahoo, MSN, or ANY OTHER AD NETWORK. Just set up an account, find the right ad size to match the specified slot, and paste the code your network provides you. All that’s left is to provide great content so your visitors keep coming back, and you’ll be on your way to make some real cash! (Launching this week!)

What Are You Waiting For?

NOTE: I’m going to be maintaining a blog to help our members use our Blogs and other site functions. Swing by and check out the BiggerPockets Founder’s Blog

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up for our real estate social network. Thanks for visiting!

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets blogs, blog, blogger, blogging, marketing, publicity

It has been a long time coming . . .

BiggerPockets Members can now show off your BiggerPockets Real Estate Profile by adding our badges to your website, blog, or profile on other social sites! All badges will link directly to your profile, so add them today and promote yourself socially!

To get your badges, just go to your Dashboard, open the Profile section, and click on the Profile Badges link, OR go directly to http://www.biggerpockets.com/badges.

Here are just a few samples:

We’ve also got property badges, where you can promote your listings on BiggerPockets, and we’ll be launching more designs in the next weeks!

So . . .get out there and let people know that you’re a proud member of BiggerPockets!

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com, real estate badge, real estate profile, real estate social, real estate social network

Just Launched: BiggerPockets Bulletin!

Yesterday afternoon we launched BiggerPockets Bulletin!

Members can use this social bookmarking application to share their favorite real estate related stuff with their friends, colleagues, and the world.

Features include:

• Post real estate related links, photos, movies, articles, blog posts.
• Vote on your favorite Bulletins and help make it popular.
• Share your thoughts on different Bulletins by leaving comments.
• Save your favorite Bulletins in your Dashboard.
• Email cool Bulletins to your friends and colleagues.

Some benefits of sharing your content include:

• Exposure from a vast audience of people in the real estate world
• Increased traffic to your website and posts
• The opportunity to get new feedback from our users
• A new way for people to share your work with others

We’ve heard some skepticism about the idea because other sites have been built with the same goal, but these have all been overrun with SPAM and nonsense. Between our filters and moderators, we will be working to ensure that BiggerPockets Bulletin does not fall victim to the same problems as these other sites. Additionally, we’ve already got a built-in audience of well over 100,000 monthly unique visitors to keep the traffic flowing.

Jump on BiggerPockets Bulletin Today and start sharing!

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, real estate links, real estate news, real estate social network, social real estate news

It has been a long time coming . . .

We just launched a MAJOR FACELIFT to BiggerPockets!

For years, people have been using our site to do everything from finding tools and resources, to discussing real estate, to making deals, to selling property, etc. We’ve just made it easier to do several of these things.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• Created a New BiggerPockets Front Page — some of the great things you’ll find on the new front page of BiggerPockets.com include highlighted property listings, random member profiles, assorted public gallery photos, tags from our property listings, the latest forum and blog posts, and more!
  

• Re-launched our Property Directory to make it “2.0″ — it is now fully integrated into the social profiles of our members, and is easy to use and interactive! Members can save a property as a favorite, email it to their colleagues, subscribe to our main listing RSS feed, or customize their own feeds for individual State or even more specific listings, and much more!
  

  Of course, adding a listing is free and easy. Members (agents, investors, FSBOs, etc) can add investment properties, land, a primary residence, commercial properties, or even make a deal post on the property directory by going to the property section of their Dashboard or adding directly through the Property Directory page. Of course the listings are integrated with mapping, and are connected directly to the listing poster’s profile.

• Established a Property Notification “Matching” System — members can select criteria that interests them, and once a listing is added to the site that matches that set of criteria, the user will be notified in their Dashboard — if they elect to do so, they will also be sent an email letting them know that a match to their requirements has been made. The user can then remove individual notifications if they are no longer interested in seeing them, and disable or deactivate all notifications.
  

• Built a Community Gallery Page – members who elect to share photos by creating a public gallery will see their property photos in our gallery page.
  

• Cleaned up several areas of the site, and made many other changes to improve the user experience.

Stop by and see how BiggerPockets has stepped up the game!

Next up . . . . stay tuned! (did you really think we’d share all of our secrets?)

Tags: 2.0 propertiy, bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com, find real estate, Google maps, investment property, maps, property directory, real estate, real estate social network, social network, web 2.0

The Launch of the BiggerPockets Blog

It all started 3 years ago today with a post titled “Real Estate Is Very Hot Investment” On March 13, 2005 I launched this blog about real estate, as an experiment to see if it would interest our BiggerPockets users.

3 Years Later, our BiggerPockets Blog known as Real Estate Investing for Real is often mentioned as one of the top real estate blogs online. In that time we’ve posted 622 articles and have had 2,873 comments (many thousands more if you include the spam we’ve had to delete).

I wanted to thank all of the people who have supported our blog over the years, all of our contributors, all of our subscribers, and finally, everyone who took the time to share their thoughts by commenting here on the site. This blog has undergone many different “phases,” and we’re still feeling our way around today, but we’re confident that we’ve done one thing throughout, and that is serve our readers with timely news, articles, and helpful information.

Blasts From the Past
I thought it might be fun to share a few of my favorite posts from the past few years . . . here’s a sampling:

1. BREAKING NEWS: Pinnacle Development Partners LLC Under Investigation - This article is so important to me because it allowed us to help spread the word about a terrible ponzi scheme with the world. Because of this article and our Pinnacle forum discussion we were able to help hundreds of people affected by this company. With close to 300,000 views and 1,500+ comments between the post and forum discussion, I’d have to say the impact of this article is as far reaching as anything else we’ve done throughout the years.
2. Top 35 Real Estate Blogs - In August of 2006, we thought it would be helpful to share what we felt were the top blogs in real estate. This post has been extremely popular, and over the years I’ve gotten a TON of complaints about non-inclusion. Many on the list are still around and would still be on a new list, but others would likely fail to make the grade today. We’re planning on releasing a 2008 edition of the top 35, and hopefully we can get this out ASAP.
3. How to handle a Real Estate Collapse - In June, 2005 I wrote about how to handle a potential real estate collapse. The market had been over-inflated for years by this time . . . I had been warning my friends since 2004 to get out while the going was good, but when I wrote this I had a terrible vibe that something bad was going to come of the Bubble. Fast forward to today and we can see the horrible ramifications of subprime and the housing run-up. I’m glad at least some people did listen and cashed out of their overpriced property when they could. Too bad millions and millions of others weren’t as lucky.
4. Top 10 Real Estate Lies of 2006 - I got a lot of flack for this post from realtors who thought I was being harsh. The fact is that many realtors do lie to convince their clients to buy or make other decisions and in 2006, this was plainly obvious to see. I couldn’t stop hearing about stories from people who had a sleazy real estate agent who tried to use a line to manipulate them. This post was a tribute to those scum-bags. The great thing about this post was that in the comments, a few of the readers helped to continue the list and we’re now at 35 lies. If we can get this one to 50 I may do a republishing . . .
5. Meet the Investor: Real Estate Investing Interview with Ryan Webber - This post marked the beginning of our feature, “Meet the Investor.” The interview was designed to help newer investors find some inspiration and learn from others who have been successful. We’ve since done quite a few investor interviews and are always looking for new people to interview. If you’re interested in joining the ranks, shoot me an email!
6. A Rental Property Management SNAFU Story - This post is important because, like the Pinnacle Development Partners article, it helped people who had been burned by a company to come together and get informed about the situation they were faced with. It was a very personal matter for me (as I was going through it myself), and I actually faced threats for writing it (and the ensuing follow-ups), but it was important for the 70+ landlords and hundreds of tenants and others who were affected just like me. Like the Pinnacle Discussion, we also set up a Whitener & Flynn Properties, LLC Management forum discussion to help those affected, and as a result, also created an area on the forums completely devoted to finding out about different real estate companies. The forum area is aptly named Ask About a Real Estate Company.
7. It’s Here - This article is so important because it marked the launch of our new Real Estate Social Network. Since launching a little over 2 months ago, close to 5,000 people have joined our site as members, and the feedback we’ve gotten has been incredible! This post is a great reminder for me of that day!

These posts mark just a small fraction of everything we’ve shared on this blog, and each post has been important for different reasons. We’ve now got 10 fantastic contributors who help to inform you all about anything and everything having to do with real estate, and I’m confident that we’ll continue to grow our readership and influence in the real estate world.

Thanks again for all of your support and I am excited to see what the next 3 years brings for us!

Our Readers Give Back

I thought it might be interesting to hear your thoughts on the past 3 years (or less for those new readers). Do you have a favorite post? Who are your favorite contributors? We’d love to get some of your thoughts on what we’ve done and what you’d like to see from our blog! Jump in and make a comment for all to see!

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets real estate social network, biggerpockets.com, josh dorkin, joshua-dorkin, real estate blog, real estate bloggers, real estate investing, real estate investing for real

BiggerPockets.com Real Estate Investing Community

December 23, 2007

Happy Holidays!!

Hey Everyone! I wanted to take some time to thank you for all of their patronage of BiggerPockets!

We’re approaching the end of 2007 and this has been another banner year for BiggerPockets.com Real Estate Investing Community!

BiggerPockets 2.0
Launch is Imminent!

Several years ago, we thought it would be important to develop BiggerPockets into a site that made it easy for people to not only share knowledge and deals, but also to network. Sadly, the project was a complete failure. Several months ago we set out to revive this vision and have been working on it ever since.

As you read this email, we are Beta testing the new functions for BiggerPockets. The official launch is just around the corner and we believe that these new developments will improve the Networking capabilities of our members.

Keep up with the latest developments at www.BiggerPockets.us

BiggerPockets Forums

Our discussion forums started the year with slightly over 4,000 members and have grown to over 11,000 strong! There continue to be countless wonderful conversations happening on the site, and our body of knowledge and wisdom just gets better!

I wanted to thank our moderators, who have all helped to keep things running smoothly. Thanks a million to James Connery (Flipper101), Jon Holdman (Wheatie), Ryan Webber (Ryan Webber)! You guys are the best!

BiggerPockets Blog

Our blog, Real Estate Investing for Real, has had a great year. Over the past several months, we’ve been building up a team of experts to keep you in the know on the latest real estate trends, news, and lots of great first hand lessons. Help us thank them all personally: Connie Brzowski, Michael Creel, Charles Feldman, FSBOJane, Joshua Marks, Esq., Richard Warren, and Jim Watkins.

We’re always looking for new, talented contributors . . . If you’re interested, be sure to let us know!

Thanks again to all of our readers/users/members/contributors for making this the best year yet for BiggerPockets.com!

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com, Featured Articles, real estate investing

I like to introduce our blog’s contributors “formally” and am here to do so once again.

Connie Brzowski
On Saturday, we were blessed with a post, Targeting Terrific Tenants, by Connie Brzowski, one of the fabulous new bloggers on our team. The post brought quite a few comments and a great discussion. Connie is a rehabber and landlord, alongside her husband, and brings to the blog a fresh sense of thought and commentary. Although she has only done several deals in her short investing career, her ability to share her successes and failures effectively inspired me to invite her to be a part of this great blog.

You can learn much more about Connie from our recent Meet the Investor interview.

Michael Creel
Last week I got an email out of the blue from a man named Michael Creel. It was simple and to the point: “I would like to write for you.” After looking over his blog I instantly knew that he’d make a good fit for us. Michael brings not only experience as a builder, Realtor, and broker, but he has a way of writing and that, I believe, meshes perfectly with the other personalities here on BiggerPockets.com. We’re excited to have him and look forward to sharing his posts with all of you!

Be sure to welcome these guys to the blog! We’re always looking for new, talented writers to join our team. If you’re interested, be sure to contact us

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com