32 Real Estate, Investing and Economics Blogs I Read

Here you go, straight out of my RSS reader. These are 32 of the blogs I follow via RSS. If you’re a new real estate investor and you’re looking for reading material this should let you get started.

1. Alberta Bubble – Every investor should follow a bubble blog or two. When I went through my RSS feeds I noticed that 2 of the 4 bubble bloggers I followed had quit blogging and 3 of the 4 had bought houses.
2. Andrew C. MacDonald – A young REIN member from Ontario.
3. Brent Davies – Former Property Manager now Realtor. Also, my Dad.
4. Calgary Real Estate Discussion – One of two Calgary blogs I follow, not as often updated at #5.
5. Calgary Real Estate Market Blog – I’m not often sure which side of the coin Radley’s on, but he writes good stuff usually.
6. Canadian Capitalist – Great general investing advice.
7. Canadian Mortgage News & Canada’s Mortgage Trends – Good source for mortgage advice.
8. Chris Davies – Me!
9. CMHC News Releases — Prairie and Territories Region – CMHC’s Press Releases
10. CREA News – Canadian Real Estate Assoc News
11. Dan’s Real Estate Blog – Dan Eisenhauer, another REIN member.
12. Edmonton Industrial Real Estate Blog – Industrial/Commercial isn’t my bag, but it’s good to keep an eye on it.
13. Edmonton Real Estate Blog – Sara and Sheldon’s blog, one of my absolute favorites.
14. Edmonton Real Estate Investor Michelle Millar’s blog from Japan.
15. GeekEstate Blog – Computers and Real Estate!
16. Go Beyond MLS – Another Web 2.0 real estate blog.
17. Greater Fool – He’s a twit who is only out to sell more of his books, however it’s a good idea of potential questions you might get from J.V. partners.
18. I Love Rentals! – A US property management blog.
19. It’s Lovely! I’ll Take It! – Entertaining photos taken from real estate listings.
20. Real Estate Investing For Real (from BiggerPockets) – A big US investing and Realtor community.
21. HomeVestors – Another kind of REIN wannabe.
22. REal Experts Inc. Blog – Brian Persaud’s site. He writes great stuff and has guest blogged here several times.
23. REINTeam’s videos – Catch the videos from REIN as soon as they get uploaded.
24. Saskatoon Real Estate Resource Centre – A Saskatoon Realtor.
25. Statistics Canada, The Daily – If you want to keep an eye on everything from Alfalfa Exports to how many Xrays we’re getting, this is the one to follow.
26. TD Economics – Toronto Dominion’s Econ department, about once a week.
27. The Calgary Real Estate Blog – Jared’s blog. Not that frequently updated, but pretty good and he does the stats.
28. The Versatile Investor – Mark, another REIN member. Mostly RTO stuff.
29. Tom Karadza & Nick Karadza – Two Realtors and investors in Ontario.
30. Toronto Real Estate Blog – Toronto stats and such.
31. Upcoming REIN™ Events – Notices and agenda stuff for REIN meetings.
32. Worthwhile Canadian Initiative – My favorite Econ blog.

Now obviously there’s some I should add, like the other banks, some I get via Twitter, like ATB Economist Todd Hirsch. I also get some via email subscriptions, but this is a pretty decent list for getting started.

Photo Credit:

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It’s been almost two years since I started this blog, and it’s high time for a redesign!

If you’re a regular reader (or get my email updates or RSS) you may notice things changing quite a bit over the next week or two. If you see something you like or dislike, please leave a comment. If there’s stuff on other sites you like, leave a comment and I’ll check it out.

For now I’ve switched things to the Thesis WordPress Theme, a theme which has a lot of flexibility, and I’m using it for several other projects too. As usual, this blog is the test bed for my other SEO and webdesign projects.

I’m also considering reversing my previous stance against advertising. Anyone have strong thoughts one way or the other? Are you interested in advertising?

That’s all! It’s a sunny weekend in Ireland and there’s a big football (Irish Soccer) match on today!

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About every three months I get a letter from a company that calls itself the Domain Registry of Canada. It looks like an invoice, knows my name and a couple of the (many) domain names I own. They ask me to pay $40 per year to renew my domain name registration.

For the love of all things Holy, don’t send these people money!

Three Reasons The Domain Registry of Canada is a Scam!

1. The letter looks like an invoice and targets individuals who aren’t internet savy. It’s actually a solicitation to switch from my existing service to theirs, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to tell people to put that letter in the shredder.
2. $40 per year is at least 400% more than I pay with my current registar, and you can get registration for as low as $5. I’m sure that if you’re not even sure what a TLD is then $40 seems pretty reasonable.
3. The name ‘Domain Registry of Canada’ is an attempt to make the business seem more official. There is a case where the same company was fined by the Competition Bureau back in 2004. It doesn’t look like much has changed since then. 

Just a quick search in Google for domain registry of canada scam will show you the very long list of people complaining about the company. 

Some other posts about the topic:

• DOMAIN REGISTRY OF CANADA SCAM WITH DIRECT MAIL AND ONLINE
• Be Aware: Domain Registry of Canada Snail Mails
• Domain Registry of Canada – SCAM Rant
• Information on Fraudulent Domain Registration Solicitations
• Domain Registry of Canada (DROC) Swindling Domains

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I love Google. The company, the search engine, their campus and their other products. 

They also throw a heck of a party. I got to attend one at the GooglePlex last summer. Here’s a video.

Anyways, the point of this post is that Google’s got a solution for almost every problem. About the only thing I don’t like is how they have a finger in every pie and are so dominant in the search industry. (If you routinely use a search engine other than Google please leave a comment!) Putting that aside for a moment, they have an amazing suite of free tools. 

First, Gmail. I don’t remember what life was like before Gmail. Wait, yes I do. It was waiting for Microsoft Outlook to catch up, or dealing with the stupidity (and unprofessionalism) that is Hotmail. It was stupid limits on storage capacity. Gmail has more storage that you’ll ever need, an amazing archive function and the ability to use multiple email addresses through the same account. (For example all my @chrisdavies.ca addresses are handled through the same @gmail.com login) 

As you can see I’ve only used (15%) of my 7326 MB and I get a lot of email. 

Second, the Calendar. If you’re like me, with Outlook, it was mostly mail and calendar, with a little bit of the tasks tab. The great thing about Google Calendars is your ability to access them anywhere and share them with others. (Which reminds me, it’s time to update my REIN etc Events Calendar) 

Third, Google Docs. This is the online version of MS Office. It’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus a nice tool for putting forms into emails and webpages. Like this one!

The best thing about docs is the ability to share and collaborate online. Brent and I use it, and Megan and I used it to plan our entire wedding, in conjunction with our family and friends. The one downside is if you’re going to be printing your documents, you’re eventually going to want to drop it in to a real copy of Word and make sure the formatting is pretty. 

Fourth Google Reader. I’ve written a bunch about using RSS feeds, and Google Reader is the best tool out there. That’s all I’ll say about that. 

Fifth, Google Analytics. I use this to track my website, and I use it a great deal with my daily work as an internet marketer at Enquiro. If you have any sort of website, get Google Analytics. ALWAYS. If you’ve got a website, you have no excuse for not having this set up. 

And they finally implemented the ability to have tasks in Gmail and Calendar, something I’ve been waiting for since I started using it. 

They’re all free and they’re all great productivity enhancers. Enjoy!

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More and more people are finding out about Twitter, and recently a whole bunch of REIN members (and associated people) jumped on the bandwagon. Kudos go out to Chris Mewhort for starting a great thread on myREINspace on the topic.

First, what is Twitter? Think of it like text messages on your cell phone crossed with a CB Radio. Little messages (140 characters), but you can broadcast to anyone who cares to tune in to your channel. I’ll let the folks from Common Craft explain it in plain English.

You can learn more from reading this or checking out the Twitter FAQ, but it’s best to sign up, find some of your friends and get tweeting.

Here’s one of my tweets, where I’m replying to @tepherguy. He’d asked if I was a flames fan, and by tweeting with the @ in front of his name, twitter will automatically tell him about it.

We’re using the ‘hashtag’ #REIN to help each other find REIN related tweets. I use Twhirl on my computer and Tweetie on my iPod Touch as an easy way to access twitter without having to go to the webpage every time, and if I click on the hashtag, it opens up a search window like this:

So the way you’d use it while tweeting would be just like how Steven did here:

So I’m proud to announce the launch of

The Unofficial REIN Twitter Directory

Last updated April 5/09. Check this page for the full list which I updated first.

REIN Members

• Dan Barton (@OasisProperties)
• Bill Biko (@BillBiko)
• Kevin Boughen (@KevinBoughen)
• Chris Davies (@w_chris_davies)
• Ed Frezza (@AgentAtLarge)
• Dineen Jogola (@DineenJean)
• Ryan Lermitte (@RyanLermitte)
• Mark Loeffler (@mark_loeffler)
• Oliver Manalese (@OliverManalese)
• Chris Mewhort (@jpgninja)
• Qmanrei (@qmanrei)
• Carla Johnson (@carla_johnson)

myREINspace Forum Members

• Alex Knecht (@NorthernAlex)
• Stephen White (@Stephen_White)

Unclassified folks who might be involved with REIN, but I’m not sure yet.

• Steven J Roorda (@BigMrSteve)
• Warren Hansen (@CalgaryRealEst8)
• Audrey Duval (@CanmoreRealtor)
• Julie Broad (@RevNYou)
• Michele Cummins (@CumminsRealtor)
• Womberoni (@Womberoni)

Hopefully this will be a helpful resource. I’ll update this post on occasion, but the main directory will live here.

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Last night I caught a great talk by Mike Rowe on Ted.com.  First, if you haven’t heard about TED, you need to go check it out. Some of the most amazing people on the entire planet speak there, and watching their talks is like crack. Watch one good one and you’ll be completely addicted. (Or maybe I’m a big dork)

I really agree with Mike about work and how the perception of manual labour has changed.

And yes, I have castrated more than my fair share of lambs, and a couple of cows. There’s also no happier place on the planet for me than renovating something with my parents. Manual labour is a great thing.

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I was in a bar in San Jose when I caught this video on the TV. I couldn’t hear the Audio, but I still understood exactly what was going on. THis is a completely remarkable way of presenting information. THis is the full version of what I saw, which was then called “Why We Drink”. 

It’s interesting way of presenting information, ideas and being entertaining.

Wierd? Yes.

Awesome? Yes.

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To understand the future of real estate, it’s important to understand it’s past. This usually means lots and lots of graphs and charts. Here I’ve used Google Doc’s Motion Charts (ex. Gapminder) to show some metrics for three cities: Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto. It’s broken down by year, and the metrics are average price, GDP and population. Push play and see what happens. (You can see the full screen version here)

The housing price data is taken from each cities respective real estate board, and I had values for every year. The GDP and population data were taken from a number of sources, both direct (e.g. Statistics Canada) and anecdotal. I didn’t have values for every year, so the motion of the chart is a little jerky. If you look at the underlying data, I’ve bolded the original data, and the filled values are below that.

Hans Roslings’ presentation at TED here is one of the best uses of a motion chart I’ve ever seen.

Please let me know what other metrics we should add to the graphs.

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My friend Andrew over at MarketingFinger told me about Wordle. It’s a tool that takes a blog or a bunch of text and creates a awesome looking semantic word cloud out of it. Here’s what the one for this site looks like.

Click here to see the original.

FYI, I had to put my RSS feed into it to make it work properly.

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I’ve said before I love the iPhone, even though I hate the iPhone. Coldwell Banker, a major real estate brokerage in the US and Canada has launched an iPhone platform for their excellent online resources. In particular, their home value estimation tools and browsing have been specially formatted for browsing on the iPhone’s smaller screen.

All you have to do is visit coldwellbanker.com on your iPhone and it’ll automatically recognize that you’re on an iPhone and adjust for you.

This is part of the future of real estate, particularly residential real estate. It’s a future of home buyers searching while they’re mobile, and being better informed and armed when negotiating. It’s part of why there’s still a role for Real Estate agents in marketing homes for sale and in assisting buyers.

Hopefully Coldwell is going to build out some more functionality for their Canadian friends, including their home value estimator.

Check out some pictures:

(Hat tip to Manoj at Web Analytics World)

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