And so when Mayor Newsom wanted to find out which data should be included on the site, he turned to the Trulia Voices community with his inquiry:

The Mayor's question received answers from almost 100 members of the Trulia Voices community. 58% of the responses came from California residents and 31% from those who reside in San Francisco. Though the answers were wide-ranging, there were definitely some commonalities among the requests for information.

Crime data, proximity to points of interest and school information topped the list on a national level. These features were important to San Francisco residents as well, however those in SF differentiated themselves from the group at large with numerous requests for information about access to transportation and street parking, indicating a clear need to navigate the city with ease. San Francisco dwellers were also more likely than others to request information about parks, verifying the outdoorsy culture that is prevalent in the city.

 "Since the launch of DataSF.org a couple weeks ago, we've had nearly 10,000 visitors from 104 countries and every state in the nation,” said the Mayor, “Thank you for taking the time to suggest ways to improve San Francisco and what additional data you want to see on the site."

From the looks of it, the Mayor has taken these suggestions seriously. DataSF.org already boasts crime statistics, transportation data as well as information about recreation and park lands. They’ve also already tackled another common request from San Francisco residents:

Today is National Breast Cancer Awareness Day, part of the larger Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Breast cancer affects many women and their families; a woman has a 1 in 8 risk of developing breast cancer during her lifetime.  And that’s exactly why Trulians are doing our part to raise breast cancer awareness and to support Susan G Komen for the Cure.

For every Trulia Pro premium marketing subscription purchased through the end of the month, Trulia will donate the first month’s fee to Susan G Komen for the Cure.  Just use code PINK at billing to make sure your money is donated to this fantastic organization.  In addition, Trulia has donated on-site ad space to the cause and has launched an employee donation program.

Other ways you can do your part to support breast cancer awareness and help find a cure:

• Donate to a national cancer non-profit or to a local cancer treatment center
• Encourage women to check with their doctors about when to begin regular mammograms - then to have them!
• Write your member of Congress to say that early detection and treatment programs be included in any national health care legislation.

I’m happy to say that my mom is a breast cancer survivor.  Let’s all do our part to make sure more women are survivors, too.

Agents: What other causes do you support in your local area?

Trulia Mayors are great social media role models and innovators, and will represent the opinions of real estate professionals in various Trulia efforts.  Mayors will attend frequent roundtable meetings, get sneak peeks of upcoming projects and will provide their input in content quality matters on Trulia Voices. Additionally, Trulia Mayors will be participating in various PR and marketing efforts, such as co-hosting local events and co-authoring newsletters and articles, to spread their knowledge and provide expert advice to consumers and professionals alike. Bottom line - it's pretty cool.

You can identify the Trulia Mayors in the Trulia Voices community by a special Mayor badge. They will also continue participating on the Trulia Voices community by asking and answering questions and blogging. The Trulia Mayors will be at your assistance when you have questions or concerns about Trulia or the Trulia Voices community, and they will be happy to share their experiences and knowledge.

The inaugural Trulia Mayors are five real estate professionals who have led by example within the Trulia Voices community, and we’re thrilled that each of them accepted their volunteer Mayoral appointments!  It’s a great start to a program that will eventually include a representative from each state.

You can search for professionals within our directory by:

Location – Our location search looks at the primary location in all member profiles. If you want to show up for a search in Orlando Florida, make sure that location is the first one listed on your profile page. Subsequent locations don’t affect the results and zip code searches won’t bring up results for the corresponding city – e.g. a search in zip 95616 won’t bring up results for Davis, CA. The opposite is true however – a search in Davis, CA will bring up results for all associated zip codes.

Keyword – Our keyword search checks all fields in all Trulia profiles to find possible matches. Whether you’re a relocation expert, or a short sale specialist, take care to include all the relevant information you can about yourself and your business in your profile.

Type of professional – As you would expect, this checks the professional type listed in each member’s profile. Make certain that you’re listed correctly as an Agent, Mortgage Broker or Lender or a Property Manager so you show up when you should, and take note that if you are a broker, you will also appear in the agent search results.

Once results are returned for a particular search, they are ordered based on the following criteria:

Total number of contributions – This criterion is designed to reward members who are always on top of their game and frequently provide advice and start discussions. Contributions include questions, answers, blog posts, and comments.

Community appreciation – The more Thumbs Up (useful) votes and Best Answer Awards you receive from other community members, the more likely it is that you will appear higher within the results.

Frequency of participation – This helps members who are consistently active appear higher and prevents a power user who no longer contributes from hogging the spotlight long after he or she has left.

Once these three criteria are checked, they form a score which determines the order in which the results will appear. However, please note that not all criteria are of equal value. In fact ‘Community Love’ has the highest value to ensure that members who contribute quality content get the spotlight.

So there you have it – the secret in our Find a Pro sauce. We hope we’ve given you ample information so you can take charge and truly affect your placement within our directory. Please be sure to share any questions or feedback you have with us.

We’d also like to extend a big thanks to Jim Walker for all his suggestions about our search results and to everyone else who shared their opinions as well.

Real estate agents have long known that people love photos, so they typically make sure to make lots of photos available for the listings they represent.  At Trulia, we strive to make it easier for agents to present their listings in the most pleasing way possible, and we’ve just made this easier.  Now, if you’re the listing agent for a particular listing, you can easily add photos or re-order photos (to make sure, for example, that the cover photo is the most eye-catching of them all).

It’s easy to try out the new functionality.  First, access your My Listings page (if you don’t already have a Trulia account, you’ll be prompted to create one).  Then, for any listing on your page, select from the drop-down menu as per the screenshot below.  (If you don’t yet have listings on this page, you can also add them here).

Next, you can edit photos from this page.  Add photos (as many as you’d like!) by uploading them from your computer or just entering the URL if the photo is already posted elsewhere online.  Delete any photos you don’t like.  Or, using simple “drag and drop” functionality, move the photos around — into the order you’d like.  You can also add captions to the photos.

Best of all?  This is all free.  You just need to be the listing agent for listings on Trulia.

We hope you like this new functionality.  As always, if you have comments or questions, please let us know.

If the recent influx of Twittering has taught us anything, it’s that word can travel fast in the world of social media. So be sure to take advantage of this phenomenon to promote your own Voices content and socialize, socialize, socialize!

Trulia makes this easy for you – just make sure you take advantage of the following features:

1. Send to a friend! With Send to a friend you can email your post to as many friends as you’d like directly from our site.

2. Share! Share keeps you covered in the social media sphere. With just one click you can share your question or answer on delicious, Digg, Facebook, Friendfeed, Google Bookmarks, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Twitter and Yahoo Bookmarks.

3. Link to this answer! This feature makes it oh so easy to publicize your own answers. Use it to create a new link to the question you’ve answered that shows your answer front and center, directly below the question. And once the link is created you can effortlessly share it to show everyone your expertise and eloquence in action. Click here to learn more.

4. Showcase your content! Use the Trulia Voices Widget to show off all of your Trulia Voices answers. It’s easily customized and installed on your site or blog.

5. Showcase your profile! Ad a Trulia badge to your web site or email signature. It’s sleek enough for any website and will get visitors to your Trulia profile where they can view your answers, blogs and listings in just one click.

Do you have any questions, comments or other tips to share with the class? Let us know or leave a comment below!

So, are you wondering what the formula is? It is actually very simple…

Trulia determines popularity using a points system. Points are given to a post (blog or Q&A) if any of the following have occurred within the past 7 days:

• The post received new answers or comments.
• The post was viewed by people interested in the topic.
• The post received a Thumbs Up Vote by  a reader.

More recent views give posts extra points. And of course, the more a post  is viewed, the more thumbs up votes it receives, and the more answers or comments it gets, the more likely it is to appear and remain on the Trulia Voices homepage for more time.

Surprisingly simple isn’t it?

Have any questions or feedback? Send us your feedback or leave a comment.

Every week the Trulia Voices Team selects one member from the community who offers up some extraordinary reading material to be featured as Blog of the week on the Trulia Blogs Homepage. If you’re already blogging on Trulia, read on to find out how you can become a featured blogger! If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines, step up to the plate and get started now so you too can qualify for this awesome honor that will give your brand some great exposure.

What makes a blogger worthy of being featured? Here are four tips to help you make it on the short list. Keep these in mind when you create new posts and you’ll be well on your way to Trulia Blog Stardom.

• High quality content – When you write a blog, make sure you take your audience into account; what would home buyers like to read, what would other real estate professionals be interested in etc.  Remember that the Blog of the week is featured nationally, so it’s important to demonstrate that you can blog about broad topics that affect buyers, sellers and owners in many areas. Results of a recent survey we conducted also indicate that Trulia users are most interested in reading about educational ‘how-to’ information. They’re looking for the basics about buying, selling, making or negotiating an offer, home maintenance, and how to buy a foreclosure. Check out this blog post for tips about writing a how-to blog and check out our Top 10 Blogging Tips to review the basics and get your creative juices flowing.
  

• Consistency – Writing one or two awesome posts is definitely a feather in your cap, but we want to reward bloggers who are in it for the long haul. Being Blog of the week is guaranteed to grow your readership and you don’t want to leave those folks hanging once you’re out of the spotlight. Also all Bloggers of the week are asked to publish three (3) posts while they’re featured. So make sure you’re up to the task of maintaining your blog. We recommend that you aim to publish one new post per week, although if you want to post more often we won’t discourage you.

• Excellent Presentation – Don’t let this one scare you. We’re not talking about anything super-flashy, but we do want to help you delight your readers. Having a first-rate presentation is key – your blog has to be readable, and those little extras you can add in like photos and videos keep current readers interested and attract new ones. Make sure you check out all of the formatting options we offer to make your blog reflect your content and your personality.
  

• Original Content – Plagiarism is not only not cool, it’s also a violation of the law. If you don’t author your own blog content chances are quite bad that you’ll become our next Blog of the week and very good that your content will be removed from our site entirely instead. If you use any previously published content in your blog, remember that you should only republish a paragraph at most and you must be sure to cite your source and link back to the full article. You are responsible for ensuring your own content is formatted property so check out this blog post for more information on Copyright do’s and don’ts.

Take a look at our past Blogs of the week to see these points in action:

• Carl Medford's East Bay Focus
• Ronda Allen's Blog
• OC Realtor Blog
• Luke Mullins' Blog
• Andre Shambley's Blog

So you think your blog is worthy of being featured? Send an email to blogoftheweek@trulia.com to let us know you’re game to be our next Blog of the week.

·   

So, what’s new?

• View most popular Questions and Blogs: On the NEW Advice and Opinions, Q&A and Blogs home pages you can now see the most popular content instead of the most recent content. This lets all visitors see, at a glance, what’s most interesting on Trulia Voices (as suggested by community behavior and feedback) and rewards high quality contributors by giving their articles and answers more prominence. If you want to see all content, just click on the links to View all Q&A or View all Blogs and you can see all recent activity as before.

• Enjoy highly localized experiences: On the top right hand side of the page you can see a list of cities. Currently this list displays the most popular locations on Trulia Voices and you can select your city, so you always have easy access to the most interesting discussions in your location.

• Easy category browsing: Categories now have a more prominent position allowing you to see what the most popular discussion topics are.

This week we’re featuring Karen Wenzel who is a real estate agent with Realty Executives-Integrity in Milwaukee, WI.  Karen is a Trulia Pro member and a big fan of Trulia Voices.

Here’s her testimonial:

“I started on Trulia Voices in December 2007.  I have learned so much from reading other agents and professional’s posts.  But in addition I have been able to track 4 sales this summer directly to my activity on Trulia.  I signed up for Trulia Pro in December 2008.  Looking forward to continuing my networking via Trulia.”

Congrats Karen! And thanks for sharing your testimonial with us.  It’s always great hearing success stories from our Trulia Voices real estate community members.

BTW - We love your new personalized Trulia Profile Vanity URL

http://www.trulia.com/profile/KarenGoPackerUp/

The newly proposed home buyer tax credit is only $500 more than the credit in last summer’s Housing and Economic Recovery Act.  In addition to the reduction, new restrictions from the Senate bill have been put into place.  Only first time buyers will qualify, and the transaction must close by August 31, 2009.  No official word on other limitations.

What does this mean for home buyers?  As Jon Lansner points out on his OC Register real estate blog, it depends on where you live.  For those of us in California, it equals 1.3% of the $633,581 state average listing price.  Check out his analysis of how the $8000 credit will impact buyers by state.

He’s charted each state (plus Washington DC) by the change in housing prices over the past year and has placed them into three categories: sickets, middle, and healthiest.  See how much the tax credit will count toward purchases real estate’s sickest state (CA) versus the healthiest (WV).

For more updates about the stimulus, keep an eye on the Politics&Real Estate blog on Trulia Voices blogs.

The new page highlights your contact information and has a much larger call to action compared to other listings on Trulia.  How much is it per listing, you ask? Whether you have 1 listing or 15, Trulia Pro is the same price - $39/month or $29/month for an annual subscription.

Good thing Maureen likes it

- Heather Fernandez - VP, Marketing

We’re very excited to announce a partnership with washingtonpost.com ( “WP”), one of the top newspaper Web sites  in the nation (around 12 million visitors/month) and part of The Washington Post Company!

WP has an outstanding reputation for journalistic integrity and is recognized as a trusted source for local, national and world news and information.   In addition, they’ve readily embraced innovative multimedia technologies and formats to provide their users with an award-winning experience (it shows – according to compete.com, their visitor traffic has grown almost 60% over the last year).

What does this mean for washingtonpost.com’s users? A great user experience for WP’s real estate audience. Trulia will be powering WP’s real estate search via our Trulia Publisher Platform, so now their users can search for homes in the DC market and millions more throughout the nation using Trulia’s innovative user interface.  And of course, WP users will have the use of our cool interactive tools like local heat maps, price trend graphs, sold property stats and other new features to come.

What does this mean for our real estate industry partners? More exposure to a highly qualified audience of buyers and sellers. WP users are a highly engaged, educated, influential and affluent group, and all of our industry partners will benefit from exposure to this quality audience.  Since the listings remain on Trulia’s platform, industry partners can be assured that, as always, they’ll be managed to our high standards.

What does this mean for Trulia? New opportunities to partner with additional forward-thinking media companies. We think that WP’s selection of Trulia as its real estate partner is a strong endorsement of our effective no-cost publisher solutions and a publisher’s local presence and expertise.  This powerful combination drives greater audience engagement and produces more revenue opportunities for the publisher.   We are proud to welcome washingtonpost.com into the family of more than 100 sites now using our platform.

In summary: We look forward to more partnerships like this where everyone wins – Publishers benefit from our free platform that they can monetize, users benefit by having access to a best-of-breed real estate experience, advertisers are able to reach a wider audience and our industry partners have their listings in front of a larger consumer base that is interested in buying or selling a home!

- Keith Louie, Director of Business Development

Foreclosures are a popular subject on Trulia. Our Trulia Voices real estate community has many real estate experts who have a deep understanding about all aspects of the Foreclosure process. Some of you have written some great blog posts while others have provided excellent answers in the comment section. We want to make all your current and future content easily discoverable on Trulia by creating a Foreclosure Glossary.

Here’s the skinny:

• We’ve created some key foreclosure terms for the community to blog about
• Select the foreclosure terms that you are most knowledgeable in - one blog post per term
• Use one of the suggested terms as your subject line ex. ‘Absolute auction’
• We’ll review all the blog posts for each term and select the best post which will get featured in the glossary
• Best posts will be selected by a combination of Thumbs up and by our judges at Realty Trac
• First review will start on Feb 24th. More reviews will happen on a monthly basis, so the best posts will get the chance to be included on the glossary
• Each post in the Foreclosure Glossary will include the name of the author and a link to your profile

With the help of the community, we look forward to creating a go to source of foreclosure information for consumers and professionals. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, please share them with us.

Trulia Foreclosure Glossary Terms:

Absolute auction
Absolute net lease
Abstract (abstract of title)
Acceleration clause
Adjustable rate mortgage
Amortization
Assessor
Awaiting Update
Bankruptcy
Beneficiary
Bid authorization letter
Breach
Debt service
Declaration of Default
Deed in lieu of foreclosure
Deed of Trust
Deferred payment mortgage
Delinquency
Equity build-up
Eviction
Extension agreement
Federal tax lien
Foreclosure
Foreclosure sale
Forfeiture
Full Reconveyance
Government Owned (GOV)
History of Notices
Important notice
Invalid
Junior Lien
Lien
Lien waiver
Listing Agreement
Negative amortization
Nonjudicial foreclosure
Nonmilitary affidavits
Note
Notice of Default (NOD)
Notice of rescission
Notice of sale (NTS or NFS)
Notice of Trustee’s Sale (NTS)
Novation
Postponement
Preliminary injunction
Pre-publication period
Publication Letter
Publication period
Ratification
Real Estate Owned (REO) or bank owned properties
Recession of Notice of Default
Reconveyance
Reinstatement
Reinstatement Period
Request for notice
Request to prepare notice of default
Return and account of sale by trustee
Short sale
Soldier’s and sailor’s relief act
Statement/Invoice
Temporary restraining order (TRO)
Toll
Trustee’s sale
Trustee’s sale guarantee
Trustee’s sale proceeding
Trustor
Lis Pendens (LIS)
Notice (Judgment) of Foreclosure Sale (NFS)
Promissory note
Quitclaim deed
Transmittal form (TS138)
Trustee’s deed upon sale

Last weeks most viewed Question on Trulia Voices was asked by Jennifer Hancock, a home buyer and seller from Fairfax County - Timing of buying and selling. She wants to know if she should sell her current home first and then find her dream home or start looking for her dream home first and then sell. It’s an excellent question. Answers can vary as it depends on a host of variables. Let’s see what our Trulia Voices real estate community had to say…

Thoughts from our Trulia Voices Real Estate Community

The first real estate agent to answer was Jeff Royce from Frankly Real Estate in Fairfax, Virginia. Jeff’s answer was so detailed that he turned it into a blog post on his own blog, OurFairfax.com. What a great way to re-distribute a valuable piece of content - nice going Jeff! Here is a snippet of Jeff’s answer to Jennifer, ” In a buyers market like we have in Northern Virginia, people who are looking to sell their current home and purchase another have a tough choice to make. Should they sell their current home, or purchase their next home first? There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but here are a couple of scenarios to consider:

A. Sell Home 1, Then Buy Home 2: In this market, you have a lot of control over the purchase of your home. If you sell Home 1 you will know exactly what you have to work with financially as you approach the purchase of Home 2. You will also get a better price on both homes. That is because you will not be under any pressure to sell Home 1, therefore you will not be tempted to jump at a low offer. You will get a better price on Home 2 because you will be working with a definite timetable, and will not need to make your offer contingent on the sale of your home. A seller who has to deal with a sale-of-home contingency will, almost by definition, expect more money for the sale of their home. Sellers look for two things when they are selling their home: top dollar and security in the sale. Which would you rather give them?….”

Monika Kumar, a real estate agent and leader of RealtyGeeks Team - National Realty in Reston, Virginia said, “Looking at the market conditions, putting your house on the market by well preparing it to sell meanwhile browse the listings as well visit the areas and narrow down the location you may want to move. Once your house goes under contract with most contingencies removed at that point put a contract on your next home in your narrowed down area. NOW this is an ideal way to move when you have a house to sell.”

Glenda Cherry is a real estate agent with Avery-Hess in Fairfax County, Virginia said, ” I have clients who are in a similar situation - they have a house in a great school district, but their kids are grown so they want to move to a different type of community and don’t really care about the schools. After many discussions, we decided it would be best for them to wait until the spring to put their house on the market (it has incredible landscaping!) and start seriously looking once their home is under contract. In the meantime, we’ve been looking at homes in various communities - that way, they’ll already know which communities they prefer and will be able to closely target their home search when the time is right.”

Marty Jones is a real estate broker with Marty Jones Realty in Cashiers, North Carolina who said, “I would think one of the main considerations for your plan would be the mortgage amount of the home you currently own, and the debt, if any, you plan to incur on the second home.

If your current home takes a while to sell, is it financially feasible to pay both mortgages? If the answer to that question is yes, and it would not create a financial hardship, I would say take advantage of the current market conditions and go ahead and purchase in the desired school district. You might also consider renting the current home for a while to offset the mortgage.

If two mortgages would create a financial hardship, I would suggest waiting until your current home sells. You could sign a contingent sale contract, but if the first home doesn’t sell, and you can’t carry both mortgages, it will be an exercise in futility. It could also mean that you incur expenses related to the purchase, such as inspections, surveys, etc., that will be wasted.”

Theresa McSpedon is a real estate agent and Trulia Pro with Coldwell Banker in Stamford, Connecticut who said, “SELL, SELL, SELL, SELL FIRST.”

My Thoughts

Thanks to the Trulia Voices real estate community for providing such thoughtful answers for Jennifer. As many have pointed out, their are numerous scenarios that can dictate which steps you should take first. Because of this, there really is no one right answer, especially not knowing the details of her financial situation. We wish Jennifer and others in this situation all the best.

Amy has a “certain amount” of equity in the home she wants to sell and thought of going FSBO in order to save commission but has learned that she has many other options that real estate agents can help her with. With over 35 comments, lets check out a snippet of what our community had to say.

Thoughts From our Trulia Voices Real Estate Community

Karen and Warren Owen are real estate agents RE/MAX Communities  in Marietta, Georgia who said, “This is not an uncommon practice and many agents offer similar arrangements. But start with your goal in mind and hire the most aggressive and competent Realtor you can find.”

Solomon Greene, a real estate agent from Keller Williams Realty Atlanta Partners in Atlanta, Georgia said, “You’ll want to give some thought to your destination. How familiar is your listing agent with your destination area? If the agent offers little experience there, it may present a challenge for you all. However, that agent can also refer you to an agent that offers more familiarity with the area for a referral fee…….”

Brad Nix, a real estate Broker from Maxsell Real Estate in Cherokee County, Georgia said, “Yes, assuming you are moving within the same general area you are selling. Many agents offer discounts as you mentioned.”

Real estate agent Hank Miller from Prudential GA Realty in Atlanta, Georgia says, “It’s a common event to use an agent to cover both sides - but understand that the key to success is a thorough vetting of any agent. You should conduct interviews of several agents and agents from different companies. The initial challenge will be getting your home sold in this market - that will come from a comprehensive and multi-leveled marketing plan lead by and agent skilled in the SELLING process; many agents jumped in during the big rush and have no idea how to work a “real” market.”

David Feldstein is a real estate agent from Exit Kingdom Realty in Forest Hills, New York who said, ” I think you really need to look at both of the transactions differently. You should not try to package both of them with related commission structures… You should use the same agent if you feel comfortable doing so. Interview the agent who is selling your home on their skills as a selling agent… Ask questions about past sales, marketing methods, and so on…. The commission in my opinion should be the last thing you discuss…”

 My Thoughts

I think the Trulia Voices community has a pulse on this subject and encourage you to read the other comments on the thread. Personally, I think it really depends on numerous factors. But all things being equal, if your agent is the local expert in the area you are both buying and selling in and you have a solid trustworthy relationship, then I think it’s a great idea to have your agent be there for you for both transactions.

You can do both by taking our Holiday Challenge!

Whether you celebrate the season by stringing up colored lights or lighting candles on the menorah, we want you to submit your best holiday home photos to Trulia Blogs. In return, Trulia will select our four favorite photos and donate $100 to each winner’s favorite charity on his or her behalf.

Here’s how you can enter:

Step 1: Take a photo of the holiday décor on or in your home or in your neighborhood.

Step 2: Post your photo in a Trulia Blog. No writing is required but feel free to include a description or your favorite Holiday story.

Step 3: Choose the ‘In My Neighborhood’ category for your post.

Step 4: Publish your post.

Step 5: Repeat! You can enter as many posts as you like to increase your chances of winning.

The Trulia Holiday Challenge ends Sunday, December 28.

Please see our Trulia Challenge Contest Rules page for the complete contest rules and details. If you have any questions, just leave a comment on this blog post.

New York City - 12th Street and 3rd Avenue

Carrie, a home buyer and seller from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania had this weeks most viewed question on Trulia Voices - Can someone please explain this buyer agent thing to me please and why any buyer would want to do it? The conversation has grown to over 40 comments…..Let’s dive in to see what our community had to say.

Thoughts From our Trulia Voices Real Estate Community

First to answer was Dale Archdekin, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania said, ” Hi Carrie, let’s put it this way…you wouldn’t go to court and expect the opposing party to represent you as well would you?

Buyer agency grew out of the need for buyers to have equal representation in real estate transactions. Previously agents only worked in the best interest of the seller. A seller’s agent negotiates for their client, holds their information in confidence, and so on. Buyers need the same professional services

Usually the commission paid to a buyers agent is paid for by the seller, but buyers can elect to pay their agent for their services as well.”

Bonnie Tegge, a Prudential Decker Realty real estate agent from Virginia Beach, Virginia said, “A Buyer needs separate representation to make sure his/her needs are met in a contract to purchase. This would be separate from the agent who listed a particular house you might be interested in. To have representation by a buyer’s agent means that you will have your best interests taken care of. If it were the agent who had a listing you wanted to purchase, they would be also taking care of their other client’s interest-the seller. Possibly, your situation could be used against you in this way. Not with a buyers agent. And the plus? You don’t pay your agent’s commission. That is paid by the seller at the closing of the property.

You are MUCH SAFER having your OWN REPRESENTATION - someone who will fight for you and protect you as well in the transaction.”

Pat and Nancy Zollo are real estate agents from Keller Williams in Horsham, Pennsylvania who said, ” the short and sweet answer is that a Buyer Agent represents YOU and can work to get you the best deal. A sub agent technically is working for the Seller.”

Renee Porsia is a real estate agent from RE/MAX Action Realty in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who says, “Great question Carrie. I am very passionate about buyer agency. To give you just a short history of how buyer agency came about, many years ago when sellers listed their homes, they hired their Realtor to list and represent their best interests but the buyers didn’t have anyone to represent their best interests.

In 1988 this changed when buyer agency was created. Today, a buyer has the same opportunity to hire a Realtor to represent their interests as sellers and it levels the playing ground.

A buyer can hire a buyer agent by simply signing what is called a Buyer Broker Agreement. All of the buyer terms are explained within the agreement which includes how the buyer agent will be paid and by whom. Typically when a seller lists their home they have already decided how much they will be paying their Realtor and the buyer agent. So, the buyer agent typically gets paid out of the fee the seller agreed to pay when they listed their home. On rare occassions, the buyer agent COULD be paid by the buyer if the home is a For Sale By Owner and the owner refuses to pay your buyer agent. No matter what, before you sign the Buyer Broker Agreement all of that will be decided by the buyer and agent…….”

Christopher and Stephanie Somers are Remax Affiliate real estate agents from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who said, “You have started a very passionate discussion. I would strongly recommend reading Renee’s posts.

Basically, a buyers agent is your quarterback. Do you want a rookie or a Brett Favre to navigate you down the field to score ? Or another analogy - when you have surgery done do you want the experienced doctor or the one in med school. Or if you are getting divorced, when you want your husbands attorney to represent you ?

The states added buyer agency for a reason - it benefits the consumer. So in Pennsylvania, you can have your own agent as a buyer, have the listing agent but a dual agent or do it on your own. The point being why would you when the seller pays the real estate commission ? Also, would one perform surgery on them self ?

Hope that helps : ) Bottom line, when you purchase a property, get a strong buyers agent !!!! : ) That way, you will have your own representation… your own quarterback, your own doctor… I think you get the point !

Carrie followed up with everyone and said, “Thank you to all of the Realtors who answered my question. I think I get it now.”

My Thoughts

There was a little heated back and forth from other buyers, sellers and agents but overall our community of real estate agents did a fantastic job of answering Carrie’s question. Buyers agents are an invaluable resource for home buyers. They will help guide and advise you throughout the entire home buying process. Don’t you want someone looking out for your best interests?

Rudy Bachraty

Social Media Guru at Trulia

• Find an agent that works for you: Do you need a foreclosure specialist in New York? Type foreclosure in the keyword search box, New York in the location search box, and hit "Search". It's really that easy. Check out the results

• Find Top Voices in Your Area: Figure out who really knows their stuff, in your city, ZIP or neighborhood. You can also see who's been active in the past week, month or since Trulia Voices first started. Check out last month's Top Voices in San Francisco
  

We all liked Ronda Allen's festive lights and decorations, and the crime scene tape ads that extra something. It must have looked fantastic in the dark. Check out her full post here.

Susan Milner submitted not one, but three photos to us for this challenge. Talk about some plotting! We all loved the giant winged skull in this photo and Susan's post was so deadpan, some of us thought she was really moving into a new kind of real estate business.

And then there's Jennifer Bowman's picture which really speaks for itself and says 'Hilarious!' This entrywas our favorite by far - it gave us all a good chuckle at our desks.Check out Jennnifer's blog post here to find out about the history behind this great scene.

We hope that you all had a fun and safe Halloween as well as a super Super Tuesday.

We want to share in that spooky Halloween spirit and we're enlisting your help to make Trulia terribly terrifying come All Hallows Eve. So whip out your digital cameras, snap some photos of those bloodcurdling brownstones and creepy colonials, and post them on Trulia Blogs.

Trulia's own will vote for their favorite eerie entries and the top three photos will be featured in our Trulia Newsletter. Photographers will also receive some tasty Trulia treats - no tricks though, sorry.

How to enter:

Step 1: Take a photo of the best dressed Halloween House in your neighborhood.

Step 2: Post that photo in a Trulia Blog. No writing is required, but feel free to include a description or your favorite Halloween story.

Step 3: Choose the 'In My Neighborhood' category for your post.

Step 4: Publish your post and admire your mad photography skills.

Step 5: Repeat! You can enter as many posts as you like to increase your chances of winning.

Contest ends 5:00 pm Wednesday, October 29, so get going!!!!

Please see our Trulia Halloween Challenge Contest Rules page for the complete contest rules and details. If you have any questions, just leave a comment on this blog post.

Thanks and Happy Blogging and Happy Halloween!

Are you sleek and modern like Arial or do you prefer a more vintage look like Courier New?

Are you a math geek who will only use Lucida Console? (Go Charles Bigelow - we love you!)

Maybe you like to let everyone know that you're well read with Times New Roman, or maybe you want to give off a more casual vibe with Comic Sans MS.

Well, now you can let your personality shine through in your Trulia Blog. We now offer more font types (and sizes), and, just like the rest of our blog options, they're super easy to utilize.




So when you write your next blog, or your first, play around with these new options, discover the font that you like best, and show us your typeface.

On the ‘Surviving the Housing Crisis’ resource center, you can find what the Trulia Voices community is saying about the current Market, ask for advice from the experts and blog about your personal thoughts and experiences. It is yet another way to bring closer together people with the same interests, expertise, and concerns.

Visit the Surviving the Housing Crisis Resource Center to be up to date on the latest developments and get advice on how to manage by the experts.

• Step 1: Write a blog post about your favorite local hidden spot on your Trulia blog.
• Step 2: Choose the "In My Neighborhood" category for your post.
• Step 3: Publish your post for all to enjoy.
• Step 4: Send an email to hiddengems@trulia.com with the URL of your blog post.
• Step 5: Repeat as many times as you want to increase your chances of winning.

UPDATE 2: Congratulations to Terry Booth of Nashville, TN for winning the Hidden Gems contest!  Terry has won herself a brand new Dash GPS device for her Trulia blog post entitled Wine Vineyard in our own Backyard!!

Thanks to all of our great participants and to our excellent judges from Trulia, Dash and CrunchGear!

UPDATE: Peter Ha, from the popular gadget blog CrunchGear, is now part of our judging panel!  Welcome Peter!

Everyone has their favorite local secret spots.  Now when you blog about them on your Trulia blog you can enter to win a Dash Express GPS device. 

Your hidden gems can be anything - your favorite local burger joint,the awesome boutique down the street, your top secret bike path or yourpersonal mechanic. Anything that's not well known in your neighborhoodthat you love is fair game!

We recently released Trulia in your car,which is built for Dash, and I can tell you from personal experiencethat the Dash rocks!  You can see a video of the Express in action onour Trulia in your car page.

• Step 1:  Write a blog post about your favorite local hidden spot on your Trulia blog.
• Step 2:  Choose the "In My Neighborhood" category for your post (you don't have to mention anywhere in the post that its for the contest).
• Step 3:  Publish your post for all to enjoy.
• Step 4:  Send an email to hiddengems@trulia.com with the URL of your blog post.
• Step 5:  Repeat!  You can enter as many posts as you like to increase your chances of winning.

Other Important stuff about the Hidden Gems Contest:

• The contest is open from Wednesday, September 24 until Saturday, October 11.
• All blog posts in the "In My Neighborhood" category that areemailed to hiddengems@trulia.com will automatically be entered in thecontest.
• Posts will be evaluated on originality, detail, respect for the topic and creativity.
• The posts will be judged by the Community Managers from Trulia&Dash and Peter Ha from CrunchGear.
• The winner will be annouced on or before November 8.

Big thanks to our friends at Dash for their participation in the contest.

• We are still in beta. Very few people have access to the blogs (reading as well as writing). Even though we are doing our best to improve the experience as much and as fast as possible, you might experience some occasional inconveniences. Don't get discouraged, talk to us!
• This blog will link permanently from the 'discover' box located towards the top right of the Trulia Voices homepage beta. Leave us comments, feedback, suggestions, etc. in the comment section of this blog!
• We will be updating this blog with tips & tricks and updates on new features we are launching. Check it as often as you can and don't hesitate to comment on the posts. We'd love to hear your feedback!
• The questions and answers you see on the Trulia Voices homepage (beta) are the same ones available from the Trulia Voices homepage. You can use the beta page to see what's new. However, if you want to answer or see more question details, you will be directed to the existing interface. If for any reason you want to access the Trulia Voices homepage as you already know it, just click on the Trulia Voices link from the Quick Links menu or from the Advice&Opinions menu.