CREST, the Center for Real Estate & Social Technologies surveyed real estate bloggers across the spectrum of success. They found that the second greatest differentiator between successful lead generation in blogging and failure was self-hosting of their blogs.
Here's a quote about the survey results as it pertains to networks such as ActiveRain: "We also discovered more evidence of the so-called RE.net echo chamber. We found that although 70 percent of the blogs in our study are written for consumers, less than half of our bloggers estimate that their subscribers are “mostly consumers.” The majority say that their subscribers are either “mostly Realtors” or “about evenly split” between Realtors and consumers." So, if you're part of a blogging network, and most of your readers are other Realtors, who is using you as their agent? It doesn't seem that the blogging networks are reaching out for enough consumer audience.
As for WordPress, what I will continue to say is that you should not use the free WordPress.com site that they host. You can point a domain name to it, so it's not about the xxxx.wordpress.com address. It's about a huge difference in features, plugins and abilities between the free hosting and your own hosting account. And, with hosting available on GoDaddy for your WordPress blog at about $60/year, why would you go free anyway? The look and customization of your blog will be greatly enhanced if you host it.
So, read the survey and heed the results. If you're serious about real estate blogging for business, host your own blog. And I highly recommend WordPress, as it's working well for me.
