Think of the material you'll be able to gather. A local festival will give you the opportunity to record conversations with artists and vendors. A town meeting or neighborhood association meeting can provide valuable real estate related material. Get some area background at entertainment spots or interview the chef at your favorite restaurant.
One real estate broker in a resort area does "day trip" videos and podcasts from all the area's sites and outdoor recreation spots. For background for local nightlife, he asks for permission from the local band to record pieces of their own music as background while talking about the night spot.
There are very inexpensive recorder units out there that will download a file to your computer. However, quality wise, after a lot of online research, I settled on the Zoom H4 (Compare Prices) Recorder. It will record in various formats, including MP3 and .wav. It will accept external microphones, but does an excellent job with the two on-board stereo microphones. Using an SD card for storage, it will connect to your computer and download the recorded files for editing and use in your podcasts.
I record directly to MP3 and now I even use the Zoom H4 as a handheld recorder for my voice-overs in the office. Its quality is better than my headset microphone in a quiet area.
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