Real Estate Blogs: The Lay of the Land

Normally we at TRET are content to remain in our corner of the real estate blogosphere, offering insightful content on all things real estate. The state of real estate blogging, however, has changed in the 13 years since this blog has begun and it is necessary to take a look at the types of real estate blogs that populate the Internet in 2024. There are a multitude of topics on which real estate blogs can focus, from commercial real estate, to real estate investment to lending and mortgage markets. There is also no shortage of target audiences for a real estate blogger, including real estate brokers, first time homebuyers, real estate technology users and even bankers. The variety of options available has made this subset of blogs significantly larger than when TRET first began.  For reasons of formatting and redundancy, this article will not merely be a list of reviews of other real estate blogs. There are a number of websites that already successfully provide extensive reviews of the real estate blogosphere like: The Close or Feed Spot, among others. Instead, the purpose of this article is to organize, categorize and put a face on the large and growing ecosystem of real estate blogs, in order to make this corner of the Internet a little less daunting.

Blog Categories

Quite honestly, the real estate blogsphere is so vast and varied that within it, someone could easily find two different blogs that are seemingly unrelated in every way except for a shared tangential connection to real estate. This immensity is merely a reflection of the actual real estate market. Real estate professionals, owners, customers and potential customers make up a large and varied group of people. Despite the variety of the target audiences that may exist, the world of real estate blogs itself has a few overarching categories into which most blogs fall. These categories are discussed below.

Real Estate News/Market Blogs

There are a large number of blogs that seek to discuss the movement of the market or report real estate news. These blogs are varied in focus, from all things real estate to commercial real estate specifically. The one characteristic that these types of blogs share is that they provide general market information about their focus area. Some examples of such blogs include: The Real Deal, The New York Times Real Estate and Housing Wire.com.  

Financial Blogs that Cover Real Estate

These types of blogs cover the financial markets in general and since real estate has an effect on the financial markets, they cover real estate as well. It would not be unusual to also find articles about the bond market or stock market investment advice on blogs that fit in this category, along with a few articles on real estate. Real estate coverage by financial blog tends to have a view more towards real estate’s effect on other markets and is less grounded in real estate industry practices than the coverage of real estate blogs. Some examples of such blogs include: Investopedia, Bloomberg.com and Forbes.com.

Real Estate Investor Blogs

Real Estate investment has always been a popular topic for content. Even before the days of the Internet, there existed television programs and radio shows dedicated to real estate investment. There’s no denying that real estate investment is a clear path to generational wealth. There are also numerous strategies that can be employed to generate a profit in real estate. For this reason, in today’s social media driven world, there is no shortage of real estate investment content. For many years, the big blog on the block in this area has been BiggerPockets.com, but few other examples of real estate investment blogs include: Fortune Builders, REI Nation and Real Estate Investing.com.

Blogs for Real Estate Brokers, Realtors and Real Estate Salespeople

Many blogs are written with real estate salespeople in mind. To name a few wouldn’t begin to scratch the surface. Sufice it to say that if you are looking for anything having to do with real estate sales or the lifestyle of a Real Estate Salesperson/Realtor, there is no lack of information in this area. A few examples of Real Estate Sales Blogs are: the NAR blog page, Inhabit, Coffee and Contracts and McKissock Learning.

Blogs Servicing the Real Estate Industry

There is an entire service industry that is connected to serving real estate professionals. The largest sector of this industry is technology. Software providers frequently target commercial real estate professionals and residential agents as their potential clients. On the hardware side, there is no end to amount of technical gadgets and devices that are advertised to residential agents, assuring them that they will make one aspect or another of their jobs much easier or bearable. Beyond technology, various real estate services such as surveyors, alarm techs, title services and the like look to set themselves apart as experts in their area to garner more trust from the industry. Most of these businesses maintain a blog as a means of demonstrating their expertise. Examples of blogs in this are include: Geek Estate, Lone Wolf Technologies and View the Space.

Mortgage Blogs

The market for mortgage loans and the mortgage secondary market covers everything from Main Street to Wall Street. The mortgage market is so large that most of the blogs that focus on it also fall into some of the other categories mentioned in this article. Mortgage blogs can be seen a large umbrella for the lending-focused blogs in the real estate blogosphere, but is not as restrictive as the some of the other categories mentioned above and below. Some examples of mortgage blogs are: National Mortgage News, Next Mortgage and Bank Rate.

REIT Blogs

Although not as large as other subsectors of the real estate blogosphere, REIT blogs offer a great deal of guidance for those who are seeking to gain more information on this class of real estate investment. Because REIT’s trade like equities, they are frequently covered tangentially by equity investment sites such as Seeking Alpha or by general investment sites like Investopedia. That said, the blogs that focus on REIT not only offer a more in-depth analysis of the concept of a REIT, but also offer resources that seek to educate readers on how to best invest in Real Estate Investment Trusts. Some examples of REIT blogs are: NAREIT’s blog, Upside Avenue, and Trepp, which focuses primarily on the CMBS market, but covers REIT’s as well.

Zoning and Urban Planning Blogs

Zoning and urban planning has always had a niche group of followers for one main reason—it’s very interesting. Not only is the science of locating people, places and things fascinating, but also, zoning and urban planning has a very colorful history that’s full of great stories. Zoning deals with the intersection of where people interact for life and business. This purpose makes it one of the most colorful topics in real estate. Some blogs that are dedicated to zoning and/or urban planning are: City Lab, The Urbanist, Planetizen, Strong Towns and Next City. For an even more exhaustive list, check out this Quora query.

Real Estate Legal Blogs

Just about every law firm that practices real estate law maintains a legal blog. There are tons of real estate legal blogs on the Internet, as a result. The best way to access the world of real estate legal blogs is either to do an Internet search for the legal blogs that are most popular in your state or the lawyers that are most active in your locale. For a more national perspective, one can look up the Vault 100 and visit the websites of the various firms listed. They all have real estate practice groups and most of the real estate groups maintain blogs. For a more centralized search of real estate legal blogs, one can visit Justicia’s Blawg search for real estate, which is linked here.  

Homebuyer Blogs

The homebuyer blog space is dominated by residential real estate brokers and agents looking to showcase their local expertise. Compass, Century 21, Coldwell Banker and Remax all have blogs targeted at homebuyers. Other large residential brokerages have blogs, but many of them are focused on the real estate industry or real estate sales practices. Homebuilders, like the Toll Brothers, maintain blogs targeting homebuyers and showcasing their inventory and industry practices. In addition to the brokerage and builders blogs, Core Logic also maintains a homebuyers blog. HomeLight also maintains a popular blog for home purchasers.

Homeowner Blogs

The homeowner blog space is dominated by three types of blogs—design/décor blogs, construction/repair/maintenance blogs and home value blogs. Design/décor blogs discuss how to decorate a home and provide prospective on trends in home décor. They also give practical tips and advice on home beautification. Better Homes and Gardens and HGTV maintain the most famous blogs in this subspace, but there are many others. 

Housing repair blogs are typically written by construction companies looking for local business and can be very helpful to homeowners. These types of blogs are not aggregated in a centralized location like some of the other sub categories mentioned in this article, so they have to be sought out individually. 

Finally, home pricing blogs are usually maintained by the residential real estate agents. Unlike the homebuyer blogs mentioned above, these blogs target homeowners in an attempt to get in contact with those to are looking to sell. Homebay.com has an amazing article on homeowner blogs that is a great resource and accessible here.

Government and Regulatory Blogs

For our final category, we talk about the government. Government housing agencies and regulators maintain blogs to disseminate information to the public that they serve. The obvious examples of such blogs are Fannie Mae’s blog--Perspectives; Freddie Mac’s various blogs, HUD’s loan blog, HUD’s blog among others. State and local governmental bodies with real estate arms may also have blogs that they maintain.

And there you have it. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it does serve to organize the vast world of real estate blogs. We at The Real Estate Think Tank strive to be a more generalist blog that focuses on all aspects of the real estate market. In this way, we strive to provide our readers with quality writing on all things real estate. Although the real estate blogosphere has quintupled in size in the 13 years that we have existed, we are happy that we can still bring quality content to our audience. Reviewing the various types of real estate blogs has made one thing clear—there is no lack of information about real estate on the Internet.