2008 has been a wild ride.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’re painfully aware of the news — credit crisis, real estate market implosion, war, terror, it goes on and on, negative wave after negative wave.
While I’ve never been one to sugar-coat the truth, I have grown weary of the negativity so prevalent in the mainstream media. I’m not a journalist, I’m a blogger. I’m not in business to sell newspapers, I sell real estate. So I don’t understand why the MSM has to be so negative all the time and sensationalize everything.
I’d say “That’s what sell papers”, but judging by general circulation numbers, that’s not true.
Whatever. Despite the doom and gloom, there have been some great things happening to The Phoenix Real Estate Guy (both the blog and the person) in 2008.
In February, Francy and I left the Century 21 Mothership and launched our own independent real estate brokerage, Thompson’s Realty. Yup, right smack in the middle of the worst housing market in recent history. We’ve assembled some fantastic agents and are doing better than we planned. There will be much more goodness to come in 2009.
On the personal (and professional) side, I was thrilled to be invited to contribute to two great blogs this year, the HomeGain blog, and AgentGenius. Both have some amazing writers that I’m proud to know, and be a part of.
The blog underwent it’s typical make-over (more than once) but I’m pleased with the results and feel I’ve finally found a theme that I’ll stick with for a long time. Thesis rocks, and to be listed in Chris Pearson’s “Thesis Showcase” is a real honor.
Traffic to the blog went crazy this year. It blows me away that over 376,000 people visited and we had over 1.1 million page views. We had visitors from all US States and Canadian Provinces and folks from 181 different countries found a reason to stop by. Given that the United Nations says there are 193 countries in the world, I’m proud to say we are truly read world-wide.
And none of this would have been possible without you, oh avid reader. This blog is a labor of love. Sometimes I write for “therapy”, sometimes to vent, and most often to share. Random musings aside, I sincerely hope that you’ve found something educational, informative, useful and/or entertaining among these pages. Obviously the primary purpose of this blog is to secure real estate clients. Equally obvious (I would hope) is we didn’t gain 376,000 new clients this year. I write for clients, for friends, for fellow real estate professionals and for anyone who might need or want to gain some insight into this crazy business of real estate. I apologize to those of you who have no desire to gain insight into me, but that comes with the territory. You’re free to skip over the nonsensical, non-real estate posts. I think it’s that mixture of article topics that makes Phoenix Real Estate Guy what it is, for better or worse. That won’t be changing in 2009, but I’m open to writing about whatever you need. Just let me know.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for reading this year and being such an important part of my life. And I wish you all the most wonderful success in 2009 in whatever way you chose to define “success”.
Here’s to 2009!
I'm Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... Welcome to The Phoenix Real Estate Guy, or "TPREG" as I fondly refer to it.
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