I side with those who say not to do it. That's because I work hard to produce a real estate blog that is community focused. It has posts and content about the area, from tourism videos to real estate statistics. I try to mix in some fun and area business as well. With a great desire to encourage subscribers over time, I do not believe that my listings popping up in the feed and the automated newsletter are appropriate. I want subscribers who are interested in the content, even if they aren't in the mode to buy or sell real estate right now. I believe that constant listing promotion will cause them to unsubscribe, thus not being around when they are in the real estate buying or selling mode.
Now, if your goal is to have a blog that is popular, with many visitors and subscribers, you are also going to be getting comments somewhere down the line. After all, that's part of the allure of blogging, the conversations it encourages. When it could become a problem, as in this Wall Street Journal listings and blogging article, is when the comments upset your sellers.
People can be very critical in a less-than-nice voice in blog commenting. The WSJ article quotes some pretty nasty commentary about some of the high end homes. Yes, you could turn off comments altogether, but that negates one of the best qualities of blogging. Or, you can watch them closely or moderate. However, this takes a lot of time.
Consider the goals of your blogging, and balance them with your need to promote your listings. I set up a completely separate free WordPress blog for each listing, not placing any posts in my regular blog at all. I turn off commenting on the custom listing blog, making it a marketing tool only. I do link to it out of my main community blog, so those who want to see my listings can do so. However, they aren't subjected to feed alerts in the blog or the newsletter.
Online real estate listings are a good thing, but there are places you may not want them to be.
