David Sobotta's Blog

For two nights this week I have helped another real estate agent sell a lot in our neighborhood.  Actually I wasn't on the job.The first night I was kayaking back in from the river just as she and her client walked around the boardwalk and looked out the gut.The next night I was just coming in fr...

Yesterday was the the hottest day of the year here on the Crystal Coast.  We had a booth at the Swansboro Arts Festival.  As hard and hot as it is sometimes, standing out and talking to the public is a good way to gauge what is on people's minds.That works if you can get them to stop and have a c...

I recently had a really good experience with a client.  I put a lot of effort into my web presence and sometimes I wonder if I have the right balance, but a new client's recent comment seem to indicate that my web efforts are well worth it.In earlier posts, I had talked about the challenges of wo...

I tried to get over to the beach this morning to get some sunrise pictures.  Unfortunately when I got to one of the ocean access points, at 5:55 am, the gate was still locked.The Emerald Isle, NC police who are usually very prompt were running a little behind schedule since I waited until the 6 a...

Yesterday was my first day back to the duty desk after a weekend trip to the wedding of a daughter of some life long friends.I can always find something to do so a slow afternoon at the duty desk is never a problem.Yesterday I got a treat and someone walked into our office. I got to spend a coupl...

First off getting good web traffic is a lot of work if you do it yourself and can be expensive if you have others do it.Very little of your web traffic will translate into real estate prospects, but with buyers still uncertain, I believe it pays to cast a wide net. Still a huge amount of web traf...

Where we live has always been important to me.  We have always made that decision carefully whether it was our first farm on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Columbia, MD, Roanoke, VA or Cape Carteret, NC where we have our home now. When we end up in a place, I inevitably end up as ...

A picture of a round hay baler might seem like a funny picture to start a real estate blog.  It is very relevant in an unusual sort of way.One of my three careers was running a purebred cattle operation, Tay Ridge Angus, in Canada, north of Fredericton, NB.  We did that for eleven years, before I...

I promised myself that I would not let my career as a Realtor® consume me as much as my life in high technology at Apple did.  There I was often away from home for days, and a workday could easily be sixteen hours since I was managing people on both coasts.Since finding buyers is so difficult the...

Since I took a trip to Alaska in my college years, I have felt that photos cannot do justice to some places.  With my Alaska shots, since many were slides back in 1970, I tried showing them on a big screen.  They still did not convey what I wanted.Yesterday I was out shooting photos of a wonderfu...