(of note: the interminable delay is no one’s fault but yours truly, Jay Thompson. My apologies)

Here’s the quick scoop for those that have been chomping at the bit to submit your finest work:

Submission Deadline: August 25 at 8:00PM (Pacific Time)
Carnival to be posted: August 31
This edition’s host: Drew Meyers at Virtual Results Blog
Where to submit: Via the Carnival Page, or email to CarnivalOfRealEstate@gmail.com (Carnival page is preferred)

And here is the nitty-gritty:

The Carnival of Real Estate (CoRE)  is moving from a weekly to a monthly format. The plan (for now) is to have the Carnival posted at the host site on the last day of the month, and the submission deadline will be on the 25th of each month. This gives the host a few days to review submissions and get the results written and posted.

Why monthly and not weekly like it used to be?

Two main reasons: Managing the CoRE is time consuming, and neither myself, nor the weekly host is paid for their efforts. Additionally, I felt the CoRE was getting some (SOME) relatively weak submissions when it was held weekly. Let’s face it, we’re real estate people, not Ernest Hemingways. Sometimes it’s hard to publish a truly killer blog post. Moving to a monthly submission gives participants a larger pool of material to submit from.

What about hosting the Carnival?

If you are interested in hosting a CoRE, please email me at CarnivalOfRealEstate@gmail.com and include the following:

Your name
Your phone number
Your blog’s URL (where you will be posting the Carnival results)
A *brief* note on why you want to host the Carnival

If you are selected to host, PLEASE make sure you have time to thoroughly review all the entries and post a nice summary of your selections. Simply linking to all the entries isn’t “hosting” a Carnival. You need to have the fortitude to pick a few of the top posts (no, I’m not going to define “a few”). The days of simply listing every entry are over. All that does is lead to people submitting sub-par articles just to get a link.

Pick a winner! This isn’t 4th grade soccer — there ARE winners in life. And I think there should be winners in the CoRE.

One idea might be to pick a winner in each category (more on that later) and name an overall winner. Or just pick the top 3 submissions (or 5 if there are a lot of submissions). Have fun with the results post. Some of the best CoRE announcements have been posts with some sort of theme. Use your imagination! Have fun with it! But PLEASE don’t just post, “Here are the entries… blah blah link link link”.

We’ll probably host the September CoRE right here so that there is time to find quality hosts for future Carnivals.

Categories:

Real estate blogging is a wide and varied field. As such, there are all sorts of potential categories of potential articles. I’ve picked five that make sense to me, but am wide open to suggestions. They are:

Local: Posts of local interest. Local as in your market area. Maybe you have a unique way of reporting stats, or talking about a neighborhood. Think “hyper-local” stuff for real estate buyers and sellers.
Industry Wide: Posts of wide interest. Foreclosures, short sales, macro-economics, federal actions. Not hyper-local stuff.
Finance: Posts on mortgages, financing and the mortgage side of the real estate business.
Investment: Posts of interest to the real estate investor.
Agent-to-Agent: Posts of interest to other real estate agents (or others working in the real estate biz). Things like marketing tricks, how to deal with different situations, how to use different tools available to real estate pros.

These categories are subject to change (and whim). I am WIDE open to suggestions.

Perhaps you’ve read this far and said to yourself, “Self, what the hell is he talking about? What is a “Carnival of Real Estate”? Read the FAQ for answers. Leave a comment below if you have ANY questions!

The Future of the CoRE

This thing isn’t about me, or this blog, or any one person or group. It’s about YOU. The high-level objective is to highlight the best real estate related posts every month. Why? Because in theory, reading the best of the best makes YOU a better real estate blogger, and real estate agent. So give me your thoughts. What can we do with this thing to really step it up a notch? In the very near future, there will be a CoRE twitter account and a CoRE Facebook page — but those aren’t what the CoRE is about. They will help promote it, help spread the word about the existence of the CoRE, but the bottom line is the CoRE is for the participants — YOU. It is what you make of it and what you are willing to put into it. WE MAKE THE RULES — You, me, and anyone else that wants to help. So help me. Give me your thoughts….

Jay was one of the first participants in CoRE and remained an active participant as a host, contributor and administrator. We decided on Jay not only for his depth of experience with the platform, but his desire to keep this resource in the blogging community in a way that will continue to be beneficial to all who contribute and host.

Jay has some ideas that he will be announcing and implementing soon. Please join us in thanking Jay for his time and continued valuable contributions to the real estate community.

This is a special edition for a big reason. I’ve had some in depth conversations with the folks at Zillow that established the CoRE. They have been awesome stewards of a great resource and we have decided to take that to another level.

You’ll have to hide and watch to find out what that is. Until then, submit your best post!

If you’d like to have your post considered for next week, click here. You can also submit your post via twitter by tweeting the link and including the hashtag #carnivalofre If you’re interested in being a CoRE host, email mprice AT zillow DOT com with a link to your blog and why you think you would make a good host.

If you want to be considered for the next edition please submit your best post by Sunday, Feb 7th (you can also submit via Twitter as well by tweeting a link and tagging it with the hashtag #carnivalofre). Are you a real estate blogger and would you like to host a future edition or take a more active role in administration of the CoRE? If so, get instructions on how to do so here. Please check the complete FAQ list if you have other questions as to how to participate.

We are currently looking for hosts for upcoming CoRE dates. Email mprice AT zillow dot com if you are interested.

Toby Boyce of Delaware Ohio

If you want even more adulation and traffic, you should consider hosting an upcoming CoRE (you can power and control to your warm & fuzzy feeling!) Kidding aside, hosting the CoRE is a great experience and wonderful way to kick off the week for all of your blog readers.

The next CoRE will be located at the 7DS Associates Blog — if you want to be considered for the next edition please submit your best post by Sunday, January 24 (you can also submit via Twitter as well by tweeting a link and tagging it with the hashtag #carnivalofre). Are you a real estate blogger and would you like to host a future edition or take a more active role in administration of the CoRE? If so, get instructions on how to do so here. Please check the complete FAQ list if you have other questions as to how to participate.