Real estate tech tips: Blogging sites and neighborhood info.

Good to be back, hope everyone missed me. Now that my son's little league team playoff run has ended, which I manage, and his hockey tournaments have wound down, I can get back to writing. This month I decide to keep it on the light side. Most brokers are thrown into situations where all of a sudden you are forced to become an expert on specific neighborhoods and know everything block to block. Not an easy thing to pull off in this big town. Today, I am going to make your life somewhat easier and provide you with several blogging websites that will make you shine in front of your clients. Some of the free websites I discovered that can fill in the blanks for you and bring you up to speed on the latest dirt are Streetsblog (www.Streetsblog.org), Curbed (www.curbed.com), Brownstoner (www.Brownstoner.com), Gothamist (www.Gothamist.com), Propertygrunt.blogspot (http://propertygrunt.blogspot.com) and Wired New York (www.WiredNewYork.com). Another popular site for historical neighborhood information is Forgotten NY (www.forgotten-ny.com). Rather than break each one down individually you will find each site is pretty much a daily news source with an online community and events calendar. You can find new development projects in the works with comments pro and con from those within the neighborhood and what their impact may be. As blogging sites, most of them allow you to post your comments provided you register, which most do anonymously. It is also a haven for press releases of recent building sales and those that are currently on the market. Also provided are various guides to restaurants, museums and other attractions or sites of cultural importance. There are links to a multitude of other blogs or other real estate related sites. It is also a great source for statistical information and real estate listings in some cases. See you next month! Laurence Ross is a senior executive broker of the Platinum Team and co-founder of PropertyRover.com, New York, N.Y.