Take charge of your home search with HGTV FrontDoor’s OpenHouse.com!

hgtv frontdoor open houseHGTV’s FrontDoor.com is proud to welcome real estate open house listing site OpenHouse.com to the HGTV family!

On OpenHouse.com, you can find open house schedules and addresses and view hundreds of thousands of virtual home tours to enhance your house hunting experience.

Combine that with FrontDoor’s 4 million real estate listings and expert articles and videos and you’ve got all you need to take charge of your home search.

OpenHouse.com also offers homebuyers and sellers great insider tips and advice, including:

Read the news release here. And be sure to watch HGTV’s Open House Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET for more news!

Neighborhood Snapshot: Upper West Side in New York City

In New York City, where space is scarce, homeowners have to be creative when customizing their living space. Native New Yorker Arlyn Gajilan set out to turn her Manhattan studio into a peaceful, eco-friendly oasis in an urban jungle.

See how a well-planned, “green” renovation can increase home value and learn more about the Upper West Side, a suburban-like, family-friendly neighborhood with the benefits of a big city lifestyle.

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Inman conference highlight: FrontDoor’s Segway to social media

Inman News’ Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco has been great so far, and tomorrow, August 7, we’d love to invite all our fans and followers to listen to the president of our parent company Scripps Networks Digital, Deanna Brown, talk about “How TV, the Web, Your Phone and the Social Universe are Colliding.” It’s at 9 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom.

In case you didn’t know, HGTV’s FrontDoor.com and the entire Scripps Networks family are actively engaging consumers through blogs and social networking services like Facebook and Twitter. On FrontDoor, we’ve also integrated Facebook Connect to allow readers to comment on articles on the site.

To spread the word about all the cool stuff we’re doing, we brought in our Segway-savvy social director. Check her out in this video!

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Extra, Extra: FrontDoor is coming to a town near you!

Our FrontDoor family is growing! Now readers of some of the biggest newspapers in the country — the Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Denver Post and more — will get FrontDoor’s valuable expert tips, advice and videos and browse our 4 million listings.

FrontDoor.com is partnering with 250 newspapers across the country to enhance their Web sites, allowing homebuyers and sellers to browse local listings and real estate content.

In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com just launched this enhanced content, while the FrontDoor team attends Inman News‘ Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco this week. We hope all you Bay Area folks enjoy it!

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Partners include Cox Newspapers, Freedom Newspapers, Journal Register Co. and Southern Newspaper Group.

If you recall, we announced a similar partnership with local television stations to enhance their Web content.

So look out for FrontDoor in a local newspaper near you!

Frustrated with your real estate agent? Try these 10 strategies to find the right one for you

I hear so many real estate agent horror stories from homebuyers and sellers (and have experienced my own nightmare situations) that you’d think “agent bashing” is some sort of national pastime.

While there are some bad apples out there (as there are in any profession), that shouldn’t reflect poorly on the industry as a whole. In fact, I know many people who rave about their real estate agents and consider them part of the family.

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Finding an agent is easy. In any given area, hundreds of professionals are vying for your business. Finding the right agent for you is the hard part.

You’re trusting someone to help through one of the biggest purchases in your life, so it’s important to do your research.

Check out FrontDoor’s Top 10 Strategies for Choosing the Right Real Estate Agent.

Vlog: Sellers need a reality check to help housing market recover

It’s tough not to think about how much your home value has fallen since the peak of the real estate boom. But as financial expert Barry Ritholtz points out, falling prices don’t affect you unless you really have to sell.

Furthermore, delusional sellers are blocking the road to the housing recovery. Until they wake up to the reality of today’s market and price aggressively, they’ll need a dose of HGTV’s “Real Estate Intervention.”

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HGTV’s FrontDoor.com is giving away $2,500 in cash to one lucky homeowner!

frontdoor-sweepstakesWe could all use a little cash these days, especially those of us who own homes or plan to buy one.

To celebrate the incredible opportunities for homebuyers, especially first timers, HGTV’s FrontDoor.com is giving away $2,500 in CASH to one lucky winner.

Enter the Summer Housewarming Sweepstakes now for your chance to win.

Fill out the entry form here:  http://www.frontdoor.com/Buy/My-First-Place-Summer-Housewarming-Sweepstakes-Entry/55192.

You can enter once each day, now through August 25!

Think of all the things you could do with that kind of money! Use it to get caught up with your bills or add value to your home.

Vlog: Inside a condo for sale in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood

Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are a great resource for journalists like me, especially when you’re on deadline in a city where you don’t have very many contacts. Case in point — before a recent trip to Chicago, I wanted to connect with a local Realtor and film a home tour for FrontDoor’s vlog. The catch — I had a two-hour block in which to film.

Rather than google Chicago-area Realtors and filter through hundreds of agent profiles, I put a call out to our more than 1,000 fans on Facebook. Et voila! Scott Curcio of Coldwell Banker posted a reply saying he would be happy to help.

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Next month, I’ll be in LA, San Francisco, Boston and Seattle. If you have a great real estate story, share it with our Facebook community! I may even feature it in our vlog.

FrontDoor, Facebook and Twitter fans: Get a virtual backstage pass to HGTV’s “Real Estate Intervention” this Sunday!

hgtv-real-estate-intervention-mike-aubreyEver wonder what really happens behind the scenes of an HGTV show? Now’s your chance to find out!

FrontDoor.com is giving you a virtual backstage pass to the new series “Real Estate Intervention,” through Twitter and Facebook.

During a special episode this Sunday, July 26, HGTV real estate expert Mike Aubrey will give you the inside scoop on his show LIVE through tweets and status updates. Tune in at 8:30 p.m. Eastern (7:30 p.m. Central).

But the best part is that you can join the conversation too!

Maybe you have a suggestion for the seller. Or you didn’t agree with Mike’s advice. Tweet and post your opinions and share them with other viewers. No more talking to the TV set alone! I’ll be adding my two cents too.

To join the interactive fun, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/HGTVFrontDoor or fan us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/FrontDoor.

You can also follow along through the Facebook and Twitter streams on FrontDoor.com.

Don’t you just love social media?

How media is changing the way we “experience” real estate

frontdoor-on-twitterI’m looking for a home to buy in New York City. I learn about local market trends through TV and the Web, search for homes for sale online, use my BlackBerry to get listing information in the field (still haven’t bought an iPhone yet), and share my real estate adventures with my social media universe, i.e. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Like many of today’s savvy buyers, I expect the real estate agents I work with to understand the ways I “consume” and “experience” real estate.

Let’s face it — why work with an agent who isn’t taking advantage of all the platforms available to market my house? Advertising on Craigslist is great, but it’s standard practice now. The question these days is — what added value does this agent provide?

On Aug. 5-7, many of the big players in the real estate industry will convene in San Francisco for Inman News’ Real Estate Connect, a conference focused on the convergence of real estate and technology.

On Friday, Aug. 7, at 9 a.m., Scripps Networks Digital president Deanna Brown will host a presentation called “How TV, The Web, Your Phone and the Social Universe are Colliding (In A Good Way).”

Brown will talk about what’s happening in real estate with the use of social media, video, TV, etc. and how this is changing the way people are searching for properties.

The entire team of HGTV’s FrontDoor.com, along with yours truly, will be at the conference, so please say hello if you’re going!

You can register for the conference here: http://www.inman.com/events/real-estate-connect-san-francisco-2009/register

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