The NEW UrbanDigs.com

Posted by Noah Rosenblatt on November 11, 2007 at 7.40 PM

A: As you guys probably noticed by the type of content I have been publishing the past 6-12 months, the new urbandigs will be a blog dedicated to "MACRO ECONOMIC DISCUSSIONS & INVESTMENT STRATEGIES FOR MANHATTAN REAL ESTATE". The goal will always be to maintain an open discussion forum to analyze and talk about what macro events are occurring that may have a delayed impact on Manhattan real estate. I will post articles based on my thoughts for the day, that are fresh and pertinent to the near term economy and our local Manhattan real estate marketplace. If you are new, its probably best for you to search the archives for past discussions on tips for buyers & sellers. For regulars, I hope you find use from the new tools and consider participating as much as possible on comment threads and the new discussion forum. Here's a breakdown of features the new urbandigs will offer. Enjoy and as always, THANKS for reading!!

1. REAL-TIME MANHATTAN HOUSING DATA - Finally! I am very excited to have partnered with the great people at Streeteasy.com to bring real time data for us to easily track. The main tool will allow you to track TODAY's, 7-DAY, & 30-DAY raw snapshots of activity in the Manhattan real estate market. All data is provided by Streeteasy.com for this snapshot and is the data used for the charting system I'll get to in a moment.

How It Works: Streeteasy's systems update once a day, in the early hours. Once we grab the daily update, the raw data won't change again until the following morning. I worked with the streeteasy team to fine tune data collection and provide:

a) only listings for the island of Manhattan
b) only co-ops, condos, and townhomes
c) excluding any listing without exact address
d) only exclusive listings
e) duplicates removed

You may notice the 30-DAY isn't there yet! Thats because the finished product with all rules in place to clean data used for these stats, is only 3 weeks old or so. Once 30-DAYS of data is received, the # will display on the widget. We will continue efforts to fine tune and enhance these tools as we go. We have reached a point where I'm confident enough to get it live, but consider it in BETA for an additional 6 months or so.

2. DISCUSSION FORUM - This has been the most requested new feature. From now on, if you have a question, problem, thought, service needed, opinions wanted, advice needed, whatever, just post a new discussion in the TALK REAL ESTATE tab above. It is dynamic, so there is no moderating for new discussions and I decided not to install a 'create account' requirement. The discussion forum is open to all at any time.

I plugged in a batch of categories that I thought covered most areas related to real estate, but if I left something out you can always email me the suggestion and I'll add it. I only ask that you keep it clean as I will have to remove any discussion that may pose as a liability for me.

To start a new discussion, simply click on the appropriate link, type in your name or screen name, select a category, type your main question in the subject line, and then the actual question in the comment box. The Category, Subject line, & # Comments will be displayed on the main discussion forum. The system will place the 'last replied to' discussion at the very top.

3. CHART MANHATTAN INVENTORY TRENDS - My favorite new feature is taking a bit longer than thought to build. We will launch the charting system by next Monday, November 18th. Please check back here soon.

When the charting software is activated, it will only display data recorded when we finished the charting database, which is at 12 days right now or so. Needless to say, consider the future charting section to be in BETA for the next 3-5 months as we fine tune the visual features and collect enough data to start discussing trend changes.

4. AUTOMATED COMMENT PUBLISHING - Write a comment, type in the security work, publish, and reload page. Bam, your comment is up. Sorry it took so long! Hopefully this will entice more to participate and share their thoughts on comment threads!!

5. BOOKMARKING - Feel free to add any article you want to share publicly to any or all of the following bookmarking / social media sites. Account may be required.

6. CREATIVE ADS - It's been just over 2 years and I've said no to all advertising requests thus far, with exception of Google text ads that pay for my health insurance. Thanks Google, but inflation is a bitch! I hope you don't mind, but I installed a simple ad system that has 3 spots under the real time housing data widget at the top right. I tried to make it as unobtrusive as possible, so that it doesn't distract form the content and tools this site strives to offer. There will be no flash or pop ups allows; only still creative ads and slow animated gif's. If you are an advertiser, you can learn more.