Maureen McCabe Central OH Homes

When you hear Columbus Ohio do you think of the City of Columbus? The "Greater Columbus Area?" Or something else?

Geographically what is Columbus Ohio to you?

Is Pataskala Columbus? Columbus - Top Ten US Haunted Houses

Is Polaris Columbus?* Polaris Mitchell’s Martini’s to be Marcella’s

Is a Southern Ohio community Columbus? I think the owner of the home knows it's not Columbus or Central Ohio but is grasping at straws to find a buyer for her home. Where the heck is _____ County, Ohio?
and thinks Central Ohio real estate agents will drive a buyer two and a half hours to show her home because everyone in Columbus wants to move to the country...

Did Forbes.com and Moody's Economy.com just consider housing in the City of Columbus? Columbus Housing Market is Stable or is this the "Greater Columbus" area?

Is Bexley and other suburbs inside 270 part of Columbus? “Obscure” Ohio a Columbus Suburb

Are the NE suburbs outside 270 Columbus? Columbus N.E. a Mansion Fit for a King

Did Forbes.com just consider the City of Columbus when they named Columbus a good place for singles? Or were they also considering Dublin, Grandview, Upper Arlington, Powell, Lewis Center, Westerville etc. considererd? Columbus 19th Best

Columbus Dispatch “beware of sliding prices”? Yes they were talking Central Ohio and not strictly Columbus since the Dispatch was calling Upper Arlington and Powell neighborhoods, along with Clintonville.

Columbus Makes National Top Ten List!

“Columbus Home to 1.72 million people”

Are Delaware, Fayette, Madison, Morrow and Union counties Columbus? How about pieces of Licking, Pickaway, Fairfield, Champaign, Clark, Knox, Logan and Marion counties, are they Columbus Ohio? Those are the counties that the Columbus Board of Realtors covers. Whenever they issue a report about Columbus sales it says:

Would Spiderman ever relocate to Columbus? Probably not but if Goran Utvic can speculate about Spidey moving to Chicago from New York... Goran wrote: "If Spiderman decided that he no longer wanted to websling from the Empire State Building..." I can wonder about Spiderman relocating to Columbus.

I wrote about it on ColumbusBestBlog.com Spidey would of course live in downtown Columbus so he could hang out at Leveque Tower, the Art Deco "skyscraper" built in 1927. The second tallest building in Columbus has the right feel for the cartoon character. I believe it is 47 stories tall.

If I can speculate about Spiderman moving to Central Ohio I can take it further and I did on ColumbusBestBlog.com in If Spiderman Moved to Columbus.

Where would other cartoon strip characters relocate to in Central Ohio? Where would Opus cavort? Which cartoon character would be likely to live in Worthington? Which cartoon family would live in Dublin or Westerville? Who would relocate to Dublin or Westerville? For the most part I kind of pictured most of the cartoon strip characters living inside 270 for some reason but in more suburban kind of neighborhoods. Characters like Blondie and Dagwood, The Family Circus, Peanuts, Hi and Lois, Calvin and Hobbes...

Why would cartoon characters relocate to Columbus or Central Ohio? Maybe because of OSU's Cartoon Research Library. This week is the Festival of Cartoon Art at OSU. Maybe some of these characters will be in town for it. From the Cartoon Research Library website: "The ninth triennial Festival of Cartoon Art, October 26-27, 2007, will focus on the art of graphic storytelling."

OSU's Cartoon Research Library turns 30 on Discover Columbus.

See you in the funny papers.

Photo credits: The photo of the Leveque Tower is from Wikipedia. Photo shot by Derek Jensen (Tysto), 2005-October-03 who released the photo to the public domain, "I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law."

Halloween in Central Ohio... It's not just for kids!

Definitely not for children... Dead Acres is scary. Their website scares me.

Dead Acres is one of the Top Ten Haunted Houses in America

Terror Park at Cooper Stadium

If your tastes have matured from gore and horror to local history and Columbus architecture the 2007 Columbus Landmarks Foundation Halloween Tours start soon.

Haunts on the High Road Rally

Spooky South Walking Tour

Dead End Bus Tour

The Haunted State House Tours - info is on Experience Columbus

Graystone Wine Cellar's "Impresarios of Opera Columbus Second Annual Halloween Party" - info on Experience Columbus

Glass Axis Halloween Party at Glass Axis a non-profit glass art facility at 1341 Norton Ave. B, Columbus Experience Columbus says of this event "Create your own blown glass witches' ball" - info on Experience Columbus

Kids...

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium's Boo at the Zoo is described as "a Merry Not Scary Event."

The Santa Maria becomes a pirate ship for Halloween! The Haunted Ship: Halloween at the Santa Maria

"Look out for the spiders and rats. Don't be surprised if we come under attack!"

All Hallows Eve - at the Ohio Historical Center / Ohio Village - info on Experience Columbus

Beggar's Night -Trick or Treat 2007 is on Halloween in Columbus and many of the suburbs as it has been the last couple of years. Trick or Treat is definitely for kids

Experience Columbus has an events calendar with details about many of these events and more.

Columbus Dispatch Halloween article with more Central Ohio haunted houses, Halloween events, fall and harvest events.

What do you think of other real estate professionals in your market commenting on your blog? Good thing? Bad thing? Depends on how they do it?

What do you think of people within your own company commenting on your blog? This was on my other blog. The company I work for is called Real Living HER.

"Hello, I am _____ _____ with Real Living HER. I would be happy to share some more insight on the building industry if anyone has interest. As we all know our local builders are suffering from the housing slow down and the economy. But they are still building quality homes at an affordable price. It's unfortunate that the local media has caused a lot of people to question if now is the time to purchase a home/condo or not. I hope that if any buyer has any doubt about purchasing a home or condo that they do one of two things: (1) contact a local Realtor from Real Living HER, by working with a Realtor specialist the value of the home/condo can be proven as well as the Realtor will be able to provide pertinent information on the area and resale value in the neighborhood (2) speak directly with the builder about any concerns they may have."

Get your own blog!

Does it sound as if she is soliciting business on my blog? Or is she just being helpful to readers of my blog? Offering to share her knowledge of the local building industry?? She did not put contact info in but she put her full name in the comment.

Rules For Real Estate Blogging and Commenting

I believe if that comment was on an ActiveRain blog post it would that be against the ActiveRain Guideline:

Again this comment was on an outside blog, not on ActiveRain. Consider though the principle of the ActiveRain guidelines, just before the admonishment to not advertise yourself or your services in the comment on another members blog post ActiveRain asks us to respect the community.

"Respect the ActiveRain Community

Being a part of any community requires a certain level of trust. Don't abuse the site or your fellow members. By joining the ActiveRain community you are given a platform to present your ideas and opinions to a large number of people. We trust you to be responsible with that platform; thousands of other ActiveRain members are also counting on your trustworthiness. "

• Do not advertise yourself or your services in the comment section of another members blog post.

Respect and Trust

The person leaving this comment works in our corporate office***** SHE IS NOT AN AGENT******

I assumed she was an agent when I first saw the comment... but one sentence (below) was perplexing. She is not advertising herself or her services but rather the company. Insert the name of your company in this sentence in place of Real Living HER and tell me how you would feel about the comment on your blog:

"1) contact a local Realtor from Real Living HER, by working with a Realtor specialist the value of the home/condo can be proven as well as the Realtor will be able to provide pertinent information on the area and resale value in the neighborhood."

Chances that I would spend time blogging and then festoon MY blog with "find an agent" button's linking to the company from my blog are slim to none.

I trust Elaine to leave comments on my blog that are respectful to me and that are not trying to advertise herself. I trust Toby (with another real estate company in Central Ohio) to leave comments on my blog. I want to trust my company and it's employees.

Would you feel respected by your company if the corporate staff left that comment on your blog? This comment was left on my ColumbusBestBlog.com The blog post is not about new construction, it is about Columbus being listed in Forbes.com as a stable housing market. The entry has a link to the Forbes report.

Web 2.0 - It's a Whole Different World Out There - Learn

Here is an open invitation to all members of the Real Living corporate staff. Join ActiveRain

We work for a great company that promotes new technology. We work for a company that said "blog." Don't say I am on the staff, I can't blog and then leave a comment like that on an agent's business blog, join ActiveRain and get some practical experience on how to present yourself and your company in the blogosphere. If you want to share "some more insight on the building industry if anyone has interest. As we all know our local builders are suffering from the housing slow down and the economy." get your own blog.

I wondered if the company had a policy againt staff joining a real estate network. The company ought to have a policy against the staff leaving disrespectful comments promoting the company and trying to solicit business away from an agent /blogger IMHO.

I changed my settings for comments to "An administrator must always approve the comment" if I can't trust the people with my own company who can I trust?

EDIT: The comment was in comment moderation, it was never published. First comments from a person are never published on my blog. WordPress.org and Akismet are wonderful things, it is not like ActiveRain because Thank God there is not a high volume of comments. Please don't comment "delete" here. Thank you for reading, I now return you to the regularly scheduled wrap up to this post...

The Real Living blog is a great place for a line like:

"1) contact a local Realtor from Real Living HER, by working with a Realtor specialist the value of the home/condo can be proven as well as the Realtor will be able to provide pertinent information on the area and resale value in the neighborhood."

My ColumbusBestBlog.com is not.

Columbus made the Forbes.com latest 'Housing Trends" list!

America's Most Stable Housing Markets

I wrote about Columbus being third on the national list on ColumbusBestBlog.com

Who else made the list and what is the order? Look at the "In Pictures: America's Most Stable Real Estate Markets" on Forbes.com for why Moody's Economy.com and Forbes picked these ten cities as stable real estate markets.

Forbes and Moody's Economy.com looked at 40 US cities. Many of the markets on the list of ten cities like Columbus did not go through the boom so are not going through the bust like other cities nationally according to the article on Forbes.com.

What the study looked at for the 40 US Cities:

-the state of local economies
-new construction contracts
-foreclosure rates
-local credit markets
-sales rates
-affordability

" 1. Seattle

2. Pittsburgh

3. Columbus

4. Dallas

5. St. Louis

6. Cincinnati

7. Atlanta

8. San Antonio

9. San Francisco

10. Ft. Worth"

Other than Seattle and San Francisco what do these cities have in common? Cheap. Forbes.com says "cheaper markets are more likely to be healthier, as loan activity is less constrained." Seattle and San Francisco are higher priced housing markets.