A little over a year ago, my son and I were having a discussion about real estate. He was considering potential real estate opportunities in the US, and he was interested in my opinion. From there, we somehow stumbled onto discussing my real estate career and the countless stories I had from that period in my life.
After about an hour of sharing stories, my son suggested that I should document these experiences. He noted that the lessons I’ve learned over the years could benefit others. The more we talked about it, the more I grew to like the idea.
For the next three weeks, my son and I spoke over the phone almost every day. I would recount my experiences, and he would help craft them into cogent articles. In that short space of time, we had 25 complete blog posts.
This simple idea quickly snowballed into a reality. The next chapter in my life had begun: real estate blogger.
After a year of preparing weekly materials, I felt it prudent to reflect on the last twelve months as a real estate blogger.
What I’ve Learned So Far
While it takes years to be proficient in this medium, I can confidently say that my writing has evolved over the last year. In the beginning, I was of the impression that length won out over brevity. The length of my first few posts rivalled that of college essays (with references to boot!). Although they provided a comprehensive overview of my experience, on reflection, I felt they lacked the punch that I noticed from other publications.
So I made the decision to write shorter posts. The results were immediate. Not only was my writing clearer, but I was having more fun with the process. Further, I no longer felt shackled to an arbitrary word count and I could just write in my style.
I’ve also realised that being a real estate blogger requires some regimen. While the writing process has been quite fluid, I’ve had to be fairly organised in terms of topics, research, and most importantly, sticking to a posting schedule. From inception, I set a personal goal to publish one post every week, either on a Thursday or Friday. This has been a challenging task for some weeks, for the simple reason that other life matters take priority.
Finally, I learnt that the blogging process is not all too difficult if you have the motivation to learn. Given my age, it should come as no surprise that technology is a barrier for me. In fact, that was my main reservation when my son first mentioned the idea. However, with his helpful encouragement, I soon realised that the tools available were not too scary.
where I Wish To Go
The past year has been an invaluable education for me. I’ve been able to build a foundation for Lost In Realty, one that can be improved and modified as I gain more confidence in this space.
My focus for the next year is to grow my reach. I started this exercise for the sole purpose of helping other people. So I’m very motivated by the prospect of reaching more people that need that help. While I’ve gained some tech skills thus far, they are certainly not at the level of understanding the science behind online marketing and organic traffic. However, I’m willing to learn and I’m not afraid to ask for help when needed.
While I remain committed to building my content library, I’m also focused on converting a portion of it into digestible pieces. Our society consumes an exorbitant amount of information each day. Further, online platforms constantly evolve to more efficiently disseminate this information. My goal is to better understand these platforms and tailor my content to reach a larger population size.
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This past year has been an absolute blast. After one full year of writing, I’ve proven that I can do this, and continue to do so until my stories start losing their punch. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen for a while…
Finally, I’m grateful to my family and friends over the past year. Their support and encouragement have served as the fuel for propelling Lost In Realty over the past year and into the future.
The content outlined above was written, edited and published by the Lost Realtor. The author has over 20 years or real estate sales and investing experience in the Australian property market. He has held senior positions in Australian building companies, including being the General Manager of the residential sales division of Collier Homes. His qualifications include a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Graduate Diploma in Building and Construction Law.