I’ve never taken part in a “blog war” before and I don’t really know what one looks like, but after witnessing the events over the past few days I’d say we’re in the middle of one.
You might have seen Rain City Guide’s recent post by Galen Ward, “There will never be a real estate bubble” and the comments that followed.
It appears that Galen posted the above article simply as a joke about the heat over Susan Ryan’s post “Just Say No to Bubble Talk” post as well as others over on the Seattle PI-sponsored Seattle Real Estate Professionals blog.
Side Note: Notice how Susan Ryan’s latest posts do not allow comments and contain very long images that scream “Get thee behind me, and much further down the page ye satanic bubblehead posts!”
Rain City’s Galen e-mailed me, wanting to know why his post had irritated me so. I responded that I felt the blog appeared to be a REIC cheerleading forum (seems like a reasonable assessment if you take a gander at their authorized bloggers) My apologies to Galen for misinterpreting his post as potentially malicious.
Here is part of his response:
“My take on our blog is this: we have 2 tech people (myself and Robbie) who rarely talk about real estate specifics, a lawyer who talks about lawyer crap, Dustin who has posted one negative story in his life, and Ardell and SeattleEric.”
I accept this and move on until this evening when I find this puff piece posted on Rain City. Ardell writes a completely benign article about the shocking truth of banks owning a large portion of our assets (unless you happen to be wealthy).
I noticed this quote right away:
“I was perusing The Tim’s blog while writing something on my blog earlier today, and ran into the comments regarding King County median income and median home prices, again. I never seem to draw the same conclusions as other people.”
She fails to link Tim’s blog but does a nice job of linking her blog post (which takes aim at Tim’s “In A Nutshell” post, which she apparently believes is poorly written and hard to understand) as a “oh by the way”.
My point is this: If the “Rain City Guide” is not a Real Estate Cheerleading blog, then why is Ms. Ardell DellaLoggia allowed to use it as a pulpit?
When I first moved to Seattle, the Rain City Guide was the first blog I came across. “Great resource!” I thought. I’m just a tad upset because I know how many hits this site gets.
How many people with homeowner envy are reading these articles? How many will be pushed into Greater Fooldom after reading it? Would you be interested in hiring Ardell as your realtor when you are ready to enter the housing market?
Me, not so much.
Note: If you do choose to post on one of the above mentioned blogs, please be civil and think your arguments through all the way. I realize it can be difficult, however it won’t go far in helping persuade potential home buyers from understanding our position. Thanks ;)
(Ardell DellaLoggia, Rain City Guide, 10-10-2006)
(Galen Ward, Rain City Guide, 10-09-2006)
(Susan Ryan, Seattle Real Estate Professionals, 10-08-2006)