realweenie

House Values

I apologize for not being bad enough on this bad blog disguised as a hot dog stand.  I know I am capable of wreaking havoc through out the bloggoshere, but have not had much time these days for wreaking. 

As a REALTOR I get a lot of junk mail, I  save some of it.  This particular piece caught my eye because it comes from a lead aggregation company.  The folks who have big web sites that look to consumers like free information but exist so companies like house values can gather "leads" and sell them to agents.  This one stood out because it was sent via USPS.  Those poor leads!  There are people out there waiting for an agent to respond to a snail mail post card.  I hope they have moved on.  If they have not they should be able to find my site quickly and get a accurate home valuation from and expert very quickly.

I get a lot of spam from HouseValues and from several other companies.  They urge me to hurry because there are leads out there for me.   When the "leads" come directly to me and don't have to go  through a lead aggregation  company they get much faster service, better too.  We need to teach consumers how to cut out the lead aggregators and go directly to the agents in their area.

As an added comment it did not escape my attention that this piece was done in black and white on very thin paper.  It came in one of those envelops I almost never open that looks like some kind of an official notice. 

Maturity

Comments on blog posts create a pickle for some bloggers.

I think I can make it simple.  If there is a comment you don't like on one of your blog posts you could:

a.  Ignore it.
b.  delete it
c.  Write a couple of nasty blog posts about the commenter, get your friends to do the same, and then add some lies to the posts to make the whole thing bigger than it really is.

I am inclined to choose "a".  If I am really upset or irritated I have been known to send a note to the commenter and ask for clarification.  I never assume the worst even if the comment makes me wince.  After all I may have just taken the comment the wrong way. The commenter may have been having a bad day and it just came out wrong.

On one occasion I chose option "b", mainly because the comment was several paragraphs long, written by someone that I don't know and it upset one of my regular readers.

Option "c" is not an option for me at all.  I simply can't do it.  Sometimes I wish I could but on the other hand maybe I should be thankful that I can not.