Grand Prize winner in the RealTown/Inman Connect Blog Contest is Monica McNamara, a novice real estate blogger who makes a statement about professionalism in real estate with a new blog, My Hometown Ocean City, Maryland. Her winning post is What Would I Want If I Was a Buyer? The grand prize is a Full Conference registration to the Real Estate Connect Conference in San Francisco sponsored by Inman News.

John Reilly, e-PRO, Vice President of Publishing of InternetCrusade, home of RealTown, said: "Monica's enthusiastic writing style is a prime example of what we at RealTown have maintained for the 13 years we have provided community-generated content, namely, the fact that there is a wealth of undiscovered talent waiting to be published. Blogging definitely provides that platform. Congratulations, Monica."
 

Congratulations:

Las Vegas REALTOR Chris Shouse is the final semifinalist in the RealTown/Inman Connect Blog Contest for her post, Solution for Vacant Houses.             .

Meritorious Mention:

Hands Free by Sharon Koziel

Can Standard be Better? by TRexGlobal (GREAT use of a table, check it out!)

NOTE: Semifinalists and Bloggers who win Meritorious Mention will receive autographed copies of The Real Estate Technology Guide by Saul Klein, John Reilly, and Mike Barnett.

Congratulations!

Real estate consultant and coach Judith Lindenau is today's semifinalist in the RealTown/Inman Connect Blog Contest for her post, Water Boy: Off Stage.  Judith's blog offers a refreshing and informative, behind-the-scenes look at REALTOR association management.

Meritorious Mention:

Watch out for That Appraisal in Today's Market, Buyers by Jeff Dowler

NOTE: Semifinalists and Bloggers who win Meritorious Mention will receive autographed copies of The Real Estate Technology Guide by Saul Klein, John Reilly, and Mike Barnett.

If you see a worthy RealTown Entry this week, nominate the blogger for a chance to win a Full Conference registration to Inman Connect in San Francisco later this month. Send the URL to Editor@RealTown.com.

 
Today's semifinalist in the RealTown/Inman Connect Blog Contest is a new real estate blogger, Monica McNamara, (shown at right) and the winning entry is her FIRST blog entry, What Would I Want If I Was A Buyer?

Meritorious Mention: 

• 8 Mistakes Sellers Often Make by Phil Kretchmar
• What Happened with the Land Auction by Lisa Delzompo
• A Historical Perspective by Joshua Keen

NOTE: Semifinalists and Bloggers who win Meritorious Mention will receive autographed copies of The Real Estate Technology Guide by Saul Klein, John Reilly, and Mike Barnett.

If you see a worthy RealTown Entry this week, nominate the blogger for a chance to win a Full Conference registration to Inman Connect in San Francisco later this month. Send the URL to Editor@RealTown.com.

Congratulations!

The RealTown/Inman Connect Blog Contest is underway and the first semifinalist in the contest is the following blog entry:

How to Set Up Your SmartPhone to Get E-Mail in Seconds by Dick Betts (shown at right). Dick is also the organizer and moderator of the RealTown Group, Outsmart Your SmartPhone.

The judges were impressed with two additional posts yesterday and they have awarded them Meritorious Mention:

• Video Edging Out Virtual Tours for NextGen Buyers by Scott Lau
• Off Stage - Association Travel Policy by Judith Lindenau

NOTE: Semifinalists and Bloggers who win Meritorious Mention will receive autographed copies of The Real Estate Technology Guide by Saul Klein, John Reilly, and Mike Barnett.

If you see a worthy RealTown Entry this week, nominate the blogger for a chance to win a Full Conference registration to Inman Connect in San Francisco later this month. Send the URL to Editor@RealTown.com.

A RealTown Blogger will win a Full Conference Registration to the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference in San Francisco, July 22 - July 25, 2008, one of the most highly touted real estate events of the year.

Write a winning blog post on a RealTown Blog within the next week for a chance to attend ths event! There is no limit on subject matter or length of post. Entries will be judged on the merits of creativity, inspiration, and construct.  Judges from the Publishing Team at RealTown will select a semifinalist winner each day next week, Tuesday through Friday. The winning entry and Grand Prize Winner will be selected from the semifinalists on July 7, 2008.

If you do not have a RealTown Blog yet, you can get started by visiting http://RealTownBlogs.com.

GRAND PRIZE: The contest award will be 1 free “Conference Package” to attend Inman’s conference and 1 workshop (Internet Marketing or Bloggers Connect or Foreclosures) an $859 value.

SEMIFINALISTS will each receive an autographed copy of The Real Estate Technology Guide by Saul Klein, John Reilly, and Mike Barnett.

Conference Highlights:

RealTown Blogger Mary Pope-Handy will be featured on a panel at Bloggers Connect, "Case Study: How Four Bloggers Are Closing Sales -- What tactics work for generating business?" Mary was last year's winning Blog Apprentice and Frances Flynn Thorsen was the winning Blog Coach in the Inman News/ActiveRain Project Blogger competition.

Frances Flynn Thorsen, Managing Editor of RealTown.com, will be a featured panelist in a session titled, "How to Help Homeowners While Closing Business" in a Foreclosure Workshop moderated by Bernice Ross, Ph.D.

Saul Klein, CEO of InternetCrusade and Point2 Agent Technologies, will be featured in "Change or Die - Does the MLS Risk Becoming Irrelevant?"

One of the bonuses of traveling to meetings around the country is the chance to meet fellow bloggers and e-PROs in person. Last week Joeann Fossland and I were in Ocean City, MD, to present an e-PRO Workshop for local REALTORS and we had the good fortune to meet e-PRO Susan Pruden, who drove up from Prince George's County. Susan has been an e-PRO for years, blogs at RealTown (Real Estate Bits and Pieces), is a No Blogger Left Behind alumna, and she uses a Point2 web site quite effectively! Susan is doing things right!

Joeann and I will be hosting additional workshops in June. We hope to meet more e-PROs and bloggers as well as REALTORS taking the next steps to advance their tech expertise.

Joeann's June schedule (Arizona):

Phoenix Assn. of REALTORS	June 5	12 PM
WCR Southeast Regional Chapter (Chandler)	June 13	1:30 PM
Phoenix Assn. of REALTORS	June 19	9:00 AM

Fran's June schedule (New Jersey):

Greater Union County (Westfield)	June 16	1 PM
ReaslSource Assn. of REALTORS (Waldwick) Advanced e-PRO Workshop featuring Blogging and Web 2.0	June 20	9:30 AM

Sign up and meet us in person. If you would like to get a head start and save $25, sign up here and use the code: 9378.

The following are a pair of RealTown Blogs Breakout sessions. The first session is a general discussion about the platform.

The second session is, admittedly, a little painful. While Joeann Fossland was on vacation in Hawaii, I was left to my own devices to "experiment" with a large group that was unmuted. I highly recommend that you take the slider and move to the 17-minute mark to skip lots of noise and setup information. After that, listen as Florida REALTOR creates a new blog for the Miami real estate market.