Real Estate Blog Ideas 2017: 25 Killer Ideas with Examples:
Most digital marketing experts agree that coming up with timely, informative, and engaging real estate blog ideas is one of the most cost effective ways to generate warm leads online. In fact, according to a study by Impact branding and Design, an astonishing 53% of professional marketers agreed that content creation was the single most effective strategy for driving organic traffic to your website.
The only problem is that consistently coming up with great blog post ideas can be a challenge. Since writing and promoting your posts takes time and effort, we talked to 25 real estate professionals to see what they were having the most success with in 2017.
1. Write Posts that Target Millennials
Example Blog Post: “How to Buy a Home in Your Twenties”
Kristie K. Forsman, Director of Digital Marketing & PR Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
“According to Zillow, nine out of ten millennial home buyers use the internet to educate themselves about the home buying process and 60% read online reviews before choosing an agent. So, as a local professional, it’s critical that you’re creating and distributing reliable content. That’s the key to growing your millennial clientele.”
Consider topics like beginners guides to home buying or video heavy posts. According to a study by Animoto, 80% of millennials consider video content when making a purchasing decision.
3. Post Data From the World’s Biggest Real Estate Website
With close to 100 million users every month, Zillow is the undisputed king of online real estate. They also produce very useful data that you can share with your readers.
The free 2016 Zillow Group Report on Consumer Housing Trends in filled with interesting data on home buyers, seller, and renters as well as home improvement, refinancing and lending.
Also, if you want leads today instead of waiting for your blog posts to rank on Google, check out Zillow’s Premier Agent advertising platform.
4. Write About Local Regulations that Might Affect Buyers or Sellers
Example Blog Post: “4 Facts About Maryland Waterfront Homes You Need To Know Before Buying!”Malcolm Lawson, Maryland Realtor
“These types of state specific regulations are the type of subject matter that large national real estate blogs featured on Zillow and Homes.com simply don’t have the resources or knowledge to write about. This leaves the door wide open for local Real Estate Agents to capitalize on these state specific or even county specific keywords as well as build credibility with their clients.”
Some other topics to consider are local building code changes, livestock or pet restrictions, or parking rules.
5. Local Fix and Flip Content
Example Blog Post: 5 Important Factors to Consider Before You Start Flipping HousesJD Esajian, Real Estate Investor
While not everyone is cut out for it, real estate investing, especially flipping houses is hot right now. If there’s one thing would be investors need, it’s professional advice and a savvy Realtor. That makes content around fix and flip in your local area a hot commodity. Click here for our complete guide to flipping houses.
7. Explain How Breaking News Topics Might Affect the Local Market
Example Blog Post: “What Brexit Might Mean for Lafayette Real Estate”Ron Rothenberg, Lafayette, CA Realtor
Whenever a big news story breaks, people inevitably ask one question. How will this affect me and my family? Blogging about how interest rate hikes, crime rates, elections, or other news affects your local market can be extremely helpful for your visitors. This can show your leads that you’re enough of a local expert to predict trends.
8. Write About The Best Local Restaurants Then Reach Out to Owners for Shares and BackLinks
Example Blog Post: “15 Restaurants in Tampa You Need to Try This Weekend”Jordan Scheltgen, Managing Partner, Cave Social
“Realize you’re not selling the home, you’re selling the experiences the person is going to have in that home. I.e. their kid growing up, the new neighbors, the surrounding community, etc. One easy way to do this is to piggyback another company’s following. Specifically, I would write a blog post on the best places to eat in my county, because big surprise, people who eat also buy homes. After writing the post, similar to this one, contact each of the companies you have mentioned in the article and tell them they are featured this leads to around 50% of the companies sharing the article on your their social channels.”
Want to learn more about ranking highly on Google? Check out our in-depth 2017 guide here.
9. Target FSBO’s With Articles on Home Staging Tips
Example Blog Post: “Top 13 Home Staging Mistakes you Don’t even Know you are Making”Seth Lejeune, Pennsylvania Realtor
Posts about home staging have two qualities that most blog posts should have: Informative and Interesting. This post is “informative” in that it gives useful knowledge that could literally save sellers thousands of dollars since appearance and impressions are important in real estate. It also taps the “interesting” side the same way that Pinterest and HGTV do and piques the interests of homeowners and those who are interested in interior design. It’s a true win-win topic for real estate bloggers.”
Need a cheat sheet? Check out Houselogic’s great round up 6 home improvements with the best ROI here.
11. Blog about Historic Neighborhoods
Example Blog Post: “Explore Historic Neighborhoods in Asheville”Stephanie Sharp, Marketing/ PR Manager Mosaic Community Lifestyle Realty
“One strategy that we employee in blog posting is to think about a market sector that we are strong in and that people may search for on the internet, then create content around these phrases. For example, as a boutique real estate firm in the hot market of Asheville, North Carolina, we find through long tail keyword research that “historic homes in Asheville” is a topic that is both popular to our potential clients and a specialization of ours. This allows us to provide valuable and relevant content to our readers and has additional SEO value when we can link to other related pages on our website such as pages on those specific historic neighborhoods.”
12. Useful Information for Buying Vacant Land
Example Blog Post: “10 Land Buying Questions to Help You Vet a Parcel”Gavin Grant, San Diego Realtor
Let’s face it. Every Realtor in town has a post (or ten) about how to buy or sell a house. Instead of trying to stand out as a needle in a needle stack, why not target something more specific? San Diego Realtor Gavin Grant has excellent and very informative posts about buying vacant parcels of land on his blog.
13. Weekly Posts on Mortgage Updates or Other Useful Information
Example Blog Post: “Weekly Mortgage Watch— January 22nd, 2017”
Grace Keister, Web Content and Social Media Marketer, First Team Real Estate
Getting leads to visit your site is good, but getting to come back again and again is amazing. One great way to keep them coming back is to provide weekly roundup posts containing useful information like mortgage updates, recent sales, or other market metrics.
14. Relocation Guides
Example Blog Post: “Step by Step Guide to Relocating to Austin”Rebecca Williamson, Austin Realtor
For most people, uprooting their families and moving to a brand new place is an exciting, but stressful experience. Like any big life change, online research— and lots of it— is usually their first step.
That makes blog posts on common issues or advice on relocating to your farm a surefire crowd pleaser for people new to the area.
15. Blog Roundup Posts
Example Blog Post: “Greg’s Picks, 30 Real Estate Blog Articles, August 2016”Marty Snyder, Ohio Realtor
Most bloggers know that when people share your posts on social media or link to them on their own blogs, your posts come up higher in Google search results. The only problem is that getting shares and links is hard work. One way to make it easier is to share other people’s blog posts that your audience might like. This makes it much, much easier to ask them to share your work in return.
Of course seller’s checklists are just the tip of the content iceberg here. You can do buyer’s checklists, moving checklists, listing your home checklists, home renovation checklists, or even checklists on choosing the right Realtor. Get creative!
17. Fun Local Content That Only the Locals Will Get
Example Blog Post: “Dear Austin, I am Emotionally Cheating on You”Steve Crossland, Austin Realtor
A lot of Realtors get so caught up in their “value add” or “evergreen content” that they totally forget that real estate is based on relationships. Who wants to spends weeks stuck in a car with a stuffy numbers geek who won’t shut up about mortgage rates? Instead of boring your readers to tears, it’s okay to loosen up and entertain them every once in awhile.
For New York City agents, the impending closure of the L train and opening of the 2nd avenue subway can be great topics to write about.
20. Highlight Local Charities
Example Blog Post: Building Great Things TogetherKerry Ann Sullivan, Los Angeles Realtor
There’s more to life than lead generation and GCI. I know this is hard to remember when the utility bill is three months late, but leaving space to do some good in the world, no matter how small, is important.
For example, you can talk about charities you’ve volunteered for or local charities whose mission you support and might need the shout out. Think your local soup kitchen rather than the Red Cross. The only caveat is to keep the focus on the charity, not how great you are for volunteering.
21. Instead of a “Best of” List, Try a “Worst of” List
Example Blog Post: 5 WORST Home Renovations of 2016Ryan Fitzgerald, North Carolina Realtor
After researching for more than a few minutes, chances are your readers are going to see a million and one “best of” lists. 10 Best curb appeal ideas, 5 best restaurants in Dayton, Ohio, etc. To help stand out and maybe satisfy someone’s morbid curiosity, try making a ‘worst of’ list.
22. Local Market Studies
Example Blog Post: “The Elliman Report Quarterly Survey of Co-Op and Condo Sales”
Austin Fernald, Founder, REALVALS
“Market studies are a great way to show potential customers that the market is healthy, prices are increasing (hopefully), and that it is a great time to buy/sell. They can also show that the agent is a credible source of real estate knowledge in the area and if done consistently, can lead to more business. It makes the homeowners think that these agents are the ones to turn to when it’s time to sell because they know their stuff and are helping out by contributing their knowledge to them.”
23. Advice on How to Vet a Listing Agent
Example Blog Post: Questions To Ask Before Listing Your Eagle Idaho HomePhil Hoover, Idaho Real Estate Broker
Homeowners, especially ones who aren’t up to date with the latest technology, may not know how to see past the pitches and choose a great agent. That makes posts about vetting listing agents extremely useful for homeowners. It also shows you know your stuff.
24. Envy Inducing Celebrity Homes
Example Blog Post: Amazing Homes of 2016 Emmy NomineesRealty One Group
After staring at listings all day, many home shoppers can’t help but click on lists of stunning celebrity homes to daydream. If you can link posts like this to trending news or events, even better.
Just remember that not all hobbies will resonate with your site visitors. Even though your basement death metal band might be truly awesome, can you imagine baby boomers relating to it?
Over to You
Have other creative real estate blog ideas that have been getting you lots of traffic? Let us know about them in the comments.
About the Author
Emile L'Eplattenier
As a Real Estate Sales and Marketing Analyst at Fit Small Business, Emile is responsible for the editorial direction of the site’s real estate content as well as curating actionable insights from top producing agents and brokerages from across the country. A licensed New York City Real Estate Agent and veteran of the marketing department at Tishman Speyer, Emile has been involved in every aspect of residential real estate from brand new developments to pre-war rentals and resales. Emile also regularly provides market insights and commentary for publications like Realtor.com, Fox News, Yahoo, and US News & World Report. When he’s not writing or editing, Emile enjoys collecting vintage furniture and playing his guitar.
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