Craig and Yvonne Schaible were thinking of buying this 111-year-old Victorian house on a tree-shaded street in Fanwood, N.J. The owner had grown up in the house and was trying to sell it now that her parents had died. But an uncanny presence threatened to scare away buyers and drive down the house’s value. The owner had not yet told the Schaibles about the mysterious sounds and frightful sights that unnerved her — and terrified her husband.

“We were walking out of the attic,” Schaible says, “and my wife said, ‘Any ghosts?’ And the lady said, ‘Well, yeah.’ We were like, ‘Cool, tell us about it.’”

[...]

If you think ghost stories make a house less valuable, you might be right — most of the time. But not all the time. The Schaibles weren’t your typical house buyers. They were living in a two-bedroom town house and were looking for a big, old Victorian house to restore. [...]

The ghost stories about the house “made it completely more valuable,” Schaible says. [...]

“It started as therapy,” Robinson said of her blog, which she created in August 2005. The launch date came six months after Carlton Knight, then the developer of Robinson’s condo, turned over his ownership of the building to the condo association on which Robinson serves as a board member. [...]

“Now it has turned into something people like to read,” Robinson said of her blog. Robinson’s outspokenness about real-estate issues has garnered her two mentions in the Chicago-centric web publication Gapers Block; she has also been quoted in the real estate section of The Wall Street Journal.

[...]

The blog also serves to caution would-be condo owners against making uneducated buying decisions. Through the blog, Robinson has connected other Chicago condo owners who have had unexpected problems after move-in day. She plans to take up consulting on condo purchases in part because her blog has unveiled such a great need.

That’s a lot of money in any currency, and impressive in dollar terms to say the least. No wonder that CNN’s John Defterios is blogging from Dubai on the event.

A tour this week through the largest real estate and development event in the world, Cityscape in Dubai, provided a reality check. 70,000 square meters (700,000 square feet) of exhibition space, showing off $1 trillion dollars of investments that are underway or planned for the next decade. (We are talking about major cities being built from scratch.)

In 2002 this show had only 1000 participants; today it has over 40,000. And if you are not a believer in this growth, why has Cityscape added another five emerging market events on the annual calendar including Shanghai? It is part of a seismic economic shift, supported by record energy prices.

“Real estate blogs are an excellent way for real estate professionals to establish or expand their internet presence,” said Richard Nacht, CEO of Blogging Systems. “The Internet is now the number one place where home buyers and sellers go for real estate information. If Realtors® aren’t found online, there’s a good chance they won’t be found at all.”

A recent report from California Association of Realtors echoes the need for Realtors to invest time and marketing dollars into online efforts.

Because of this there are now reports that moves to regulate online realtor blogs are afoot. A number of real estate brokers and agents are posting entries on this possibility, but one of the most comprehensive is at The Real Estate Bloggers.

[...] the real rub is that non Realtors like myself will be in a position to dominate. I am not complaining but I also see this as madness. What drew me into real estate blogging is the diversity of voices. If the only ones blogging will be the mortgage guys and gadflies like myself, we will all be poorer.

And while attention is on blogs in the real estate market, Movies-Shopping takes a look at another evolution in the way realtors can reach out to potential clients — television. Still, as an online resource, Real Estate Broker will continue blogging and promises to bring you the latest developments in the realty market as and when they happen.