Feet on the Street still wins the day

I follow a few trade online sites which give inside information to people who are seriously in the online business.Everyone is in competition for the consumers sticky eyeballs on the internet, but guess what people, its not winning.

Recently on one of my feeds the results of a new survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Company, a reputable company which deals with lots of very large clients posted the latest results about internet usage and how people communicate to each other in their neighbourhoods.

Since Real Estate is all about location location location I wanted to share this with you.

By the way nothing is new under the sun as people are people are people and word of mouth still travels faster and is more sustainable in the world of Real Estate and the Real Estate market is local.

Here are the results which I don't find fascinating but something to keep in mind when looking for a house, you still must walk the property to obtain a real sense of the curb appeal of the neighbourhood.

46% of Americans talked face to face with neighbours in their community.
21% discussed community issues over the telephone - The telephone...imagine!
11% read a blog dealing with community issues: Community Blogs are particularly popular among residents or urban areas, as 17% of wired urbanites read local blogs.
9% exchanged emails with neighbours about community issues and 5% say they belong to a community email list.
4% communicated with neighbours via text messaging on cell phones.
4% joined social network site group connected to community issues
2% followed neighbours using Twitter.

I have been twittering back and forth (like the play on words) about what is really useful to people and what is not regarding the social scene of online in terms of the Real Estate industry. I haven't decided yet so here I am with you trying to figure it out and trying to create something useful for all of us. Something that is meaningful in our own back yards.

I wanted to create more then a blog but a community that offered insight and sharing of communication on a platform that integrated multimedia on one page. I am prepared to pay a monthly fee to obtain the server services and privacy to build this community of caring people who value their neighbourhoods.

I have even created a cartoon to poke fun of all of us. I call the Cartoon Curb Appeal with Rhonda Realtor.

Therefore I would like you to join my ning community at curbappeal.ning.com and share the best and the worst in your community regarding its look and feel. We can all learn and grow our communities to be a better place to live if we just start with our neighbourhood curb appeal. Whether you live in a cabin or a castle all homes are important to the look and feel of your neighbourhood.

There is a wonderful saying I have on my sketch/idea book. It reads
"An artist is a sketchbook with a hand attached to it". We could say the same about our neighbourhoods, they can be works or art but we are attached to it.

Love to hear from you.

Cheers
Kim