Jay's Phoenix Area Real Estate (and more...)

Step right up! The first Carnival of ActiveRain is on!

I had the pleasure (and pain) of hosting and picking the winner of the "Industry News" category. It was a pleasure because there were some great posts to pick from and I got to see a couple of bloggers I hadn't noted before. It was painful because it's quite difficult to single out a winner.

I looked at several factors -- Did I find the post interesting? Would others find the post interesting? Did the entrant follow the rules? (the rules are limited, but we did have one who submitted multiple entries. Sorry, but that's clearly a no-no.) And yes, I even considered spelling, grammar and how the entry was laid out (though these factors were minimal.) Interest, as fuzzy as that is, was the main factor.


That said, I'm pleased to announce the winner of the Industry News section is....

Toby Boyce with his entry "Calling a Scam a Scam: But is it Really?"  Toby's blog is basically a review and opinion of a CNNMoney article on closing costs and the real estate industry. What makes it a winner in my eyes are several things: 1) the title compels you to want to read it; 2) the article Toby's writing about is a current "hot" topic; 3) he summarizes the article well; 4) he offers some strong opinions backed up with fact; and 5) it's well written.

Nice job Toby!

Since this is the first (of many I hope) ActiveRain Carnivals, I'd like to take a moment to mention the other entries in this category. Like I said, picking a winner wasn't easy. Read these and you'll see why. In no particular order:

John Rogers tells us all about El Paso, Texas in this informative and deeply linked blog. You can feel the west Texas wind in this post. Love the linkage John! And thanks for your service.

Donna Harris, also from the Great State of Texas describes an intriguing arbitration review process for property tax assessments. I lived in Texas for 20 years, they need this process! Congrats to Donna on getting "arbitration certified".

Mitchell Hall gives as a little insight into the Manhattan real estate world in his blog on "No fee" (or are they?) rental listings. Mitchell's blog even got a comment from some dude named Craig. "So what?" you ask.  Commentor Craig happens to be Craig Newmark who founded and owns a little website you may have heard of called CraigsList...

Karen Villa Schweinfurth gives us the lowdown on affordable (or not) housing in Everette (Washington) and Snohomish counties. Great use of illustration by converting the numbers into salaries of some common jobs.

JaneAnne Narrin goes green on this great post about energy efficient homes. Some great links to be had here.

Rick & Ines deflate the bubble in sunny Miami Shores. I love the pictures these two use in their blog entries. Makes me want to sip a mai-tai on the beach or do a little salsa dancing...

Dave Rosenmarkle in a typically stellar post discusses realtors doing the independant brokerage thing. How Dave picked this one amongst MANY choices, I don't know. I mean it's great, but all his posts are great.

Great job done by all!  Special thanks to Maureen Francis for pulling all this together. What a great advocate she is for AR and all its members. 

As promised, I'll have mention of this up on my "other blog" later today! I think I'm going to wait until all the results are in... UPDATED TO ADD, the post on The Phoenix Real Estate Guy is up!