Oh to be a Political Blogger in Tucson

Part of Magnificent Tucson

For the most part I keep politics out of the content of this blog.   I don’t mention the city or county government or those in power unless it somehow impacts the Tucson Real Estate Market.

I don’t write about the ballot initiatives or Tucson’s downtown fiasco called “Reo Nuevo”.   Oh, what a target rich environment it is.   There are almost daily topics that could fall under categories of “Incompetence”, “Arrogance”, “Stupidity”, “Self Aggrandizement” or worse.

But that’s not my beat.   I write about Tucson and Tucson’s real estate market.   Recently, (that would be most of this year) the passion to do so has been missing.   It shows doesn’t it.   If you take a look back at the Archives page you will see the posting frequency has dropped of significantly this year.

I am passionate about Tucson.   I do love living here (especially in winter).   I’m not one to pull the “Rah, rah, Tucson is great and now is a great time to buy real estate” cheer.   I never say, “Now is a great time to buy”,   I also never say “For all your real estate needs”.   There are reasons for both.

Now is a great time to buy

How many times has the National Association of Realtors said as much over the past 5 years.   I can’t count the times.   Oh yeah, 2006 when prices were going up all over the nation and people were buying homes they couldn’t afford.   “That was a great time to buy”, never mind it was a horrible time to “Make your payments once you bought”.   A good time to buy changes for every single person, family and situation.   The NAR is like the boy crying “Wolf” in reverse.   They have said it so often we laugh, don’t we?

For All Your Real Estate Needs

Oh, that’s one you see on almost every real estate agent site or business card.   Listing presentations are designed to spew it forth in a palatable manner, yet I don’t care how many classes or designations an agent has there isn’t a single one that can or will meet “All your real estate needs”.

We focus on residential, we know very little about commercial real estate (other than we know some great commercial agents we can refer to)   We don’t sell land in Three Points.   Why?   Because we don’t know anything about Three Points or the community around it.   We do sell all around Tucson because we know about Tucson.   Green Valley, we have agents we know that live there and do a great job for clients in that community.

But for “All your real estate needs”, no way.   Not possible,   “I have a villa in the south of France can you list that for me?”   Oh, sure, we are ‘for all your real estate needs’”

Back to Tucson Real Estate

I am what my mom used to call “A jack of all trades, master of none”.   What does that mean for me personally?   I have a lot of interests.   I love photography.   I love travel.   I love eating breakfast at McDonalds (Which is about to get better with free WIFI come January)   Most of all, I’M A GEEK.   Not a geek in the “Smart as god” kind of geek.   I’m a geek in that I love to tinker with the making of a website/blog.

I have a photo blog about Tucson and our travels.   It is called “Painting Tucson“.   I bought that domain name for a friend here in Tucson that has a painting business.   He used to play football for “Woody Hayes”.   I’m a Buckeye, like him.   I grew up in the Woody Hayes era BWGW (Before Woody Got Weird).   He never took me up on the offer to build him a site so I turned it into a photo blog.

If you Google “Tucson Photo Blog” you will find a bunch of mostly old, crappy photo blog websites.   (Mine isn’t one of those).

Tucson Real Estate in The News

This was my first blog.   I started it to provide some balance of the unbalanced reporting of Tucson Real Estate.   Primarily this was reporting by the Arizona Daily Star.   After a few months of covering “Statistics and Tucson Real Estate News” I knew I wanted to expand the coverage to “Life in Tucson” as well as RE News and Statistics, which let’s face it can be pretty boring if you aren’t looking buy or sell a house.

This was over three years ago.   Back then there weren’t a lot of real estate blogs in existence.   It was difficult to find the technical information I needed to set up hosting, and pick a platform on which to build this “Information Empire” (yes I say that with tongue in cheek).

But as I said early I’m a geek.   I call myself “The Dial-up Geek” because I don’t come to geekiness quickly.   The other way of saying it “I’m a slow learner”.   To help others in the same situation at the time I started “The Real Estate Blog Lab – a place for real estate bloggers to hang out and learn”.   I think it is I who have learned the most from that blog.   It is my online personal journal of “How the heck did I do this”   So when I need to do it again I go to the Lab.

Tucson Real Estate Blog

That lead to the birth of this blog covering special event and life in Tucson along with the previous content mentioned above.   After about 6 months of dual writing on both blogs I combined them on intrepid day into this single entity.

Here we are now 3 plus years down the road.   Maybe this is like “hitting the wall” for marathon runners.   I find the sirens of photography and geekiness calling louder these days than the Tucson Real Estate piper.

However, I love the Mountains of Tucson.   I love the desert (even though it isn’t as green as I would like and thorn free).   I love the winters.   I’m wearing shorts on December 16th, 2009 and loving it.

But to be a Political Blogger in Tucson, Oh, now that’s a topic of which there is no bounds or end.