Opening Doors - HomeFinder Blog for Home Buyers and Sellers

Think Before You Link - 5 Ways You Should NOT Use Blogs

jwilson@homescape.com — 12 Nov 2009 22:21:08 CST

Remember when your parents lectured you saying your driver’s license was a privilege and not a right? Well, the same holds true when it comes to interacting with blogs. Social media is a great way to get the message out, but there are rules for blog etiquette.

If only there was a way to take away a user's keys when they misuse blogs, we could probably clean up a lot of unnecessary clutter. The following are the 5 biggest ways I see agents misusing blogs:

5. Don't use video, podcasting, etc if you don't have quality content.

Only use video or audio in the following situations:

a) words won’t do the story justice (video about proper home staging)

b) it saves you time (an interview where transcribing it would take too long)

Always remember to stay on topic; editing is your best friend. If you think of multiple topics, instead of cramming them in all together, break them out into separate stories. If the video or audio is going too long, leave them wanting more and split it into multiple parts.

4. Reposting stories that are from CNN, Inman, TechCrunch, etc.

Remember that a blog is there to represent you and your opinions. If you are reposting stories and not giving your take on the situation, you are doing your readers an injustice. Summarize the story, link to the full story and give your opinion or thoughts about how it affects you or others.

3. Stories that are just glorified personal advertisements.

It’s great that you think that you are wonderful, but rather than telling us how great you are, show us you are great by teaching us to better ourselves.

2. Forcing a post about a property that you have just listed where it doesn’t belong.

Sharing a property on social media is cool. Posting a property to someone’s Facebook or tweeting about a new listing is perfectly acceptable. There are tons of sites where you can push your listings out to on the Internet, but before you do, take a moment and ask yourself: Given the culture of this site, would people find this post interesting? If you give the answer that everyone is excited about new homes for sale, you will get your keys taken away.

1. Dropping links back to your site as a comment to an article.

Getting links back to your site is one dimension of getting your site to the top of the search engines, and comments are the easiest way to put links back to you from someone else’s site. But with great power comes great responsibility. Does the link that you are about to put in this comment add to the discussion, or are you forcing it? Forcing links into comments makes you look unprofessional. If you really want quality links back from that site, ask the blog owner if you can write a guest post.

Your online presence is just as valuable to you as any marketing or branding that you would do. With the majority of home searches starting online, think about how you can put your best foot forward, and not leave behind a trail of bad habits. And remember: think before you link.

HomeFinder VP Mark Tepper Named Industry Visionary

ccarden@homescape.com — 04 Nov 2009 17:26:52 CST

Mark Tepper, HomeFinder.com VP of Business Development and Sales, was recently added to Frogpond’s list of Industry Visionaries, joining notable profiles including Harley E. Rouda, Jr. (CEO/Managing Partner of Real Living), Victor Lund (Co-Founding Partner of the WAV Group) and Steve H. Murray, Editor of REAL Trends & Lore Magazine, among others.

FrogPond, provider of unique “Communications Solutions” enabling corporations, associations and small businesses nationwide to effectively reach customers, employees and members with ahead of the curve industry information, is headed by Susie Hale.

Below is an excerpt of Mark’s Industry Visionary profile. Check out the full interview on Frogpond. Many thanks to Susie and the Frogpond team!

As an "industry visionary", what do you see as the major changes occurring in the real estate industry?

You don’t have to be a “visionary” to recognize the two areas that are challenging the status quo, social media and agent ratings.

Social media phenomena like Facebook and Twitter are changing the way agents and brokers market themselves and their properties. For a very long time, there was nothing new in Real Estate Marketing/Advertising. Social media has taken the local cocktail party and put it online. The great news is this can be leveraged to help grow your business very quickly, especially for new agents. The bad news is, if you’re an established agent that doesn’t use social media, you may lose the next generation of buyers and sellers.

Lastly, agent ratings could change the way we choose a Realtor. There are a few sites out there that are experimenting with agent ratings, HAR, RedFin and HomeThinking are the few that come to mind. Relatively speaking, it’s not that difficult to become a licensed agent, however, it is difficult to stay in the business and be successful. The easier it is for consumers to differentiate agents, the harder it will be for many at the lower end of the skill/experience spectrum to stay in the game.

Who are the "individual trendsetters" that are shaping the future real estate industry?

In 2006, Time Magazine’s person of the year was “You.” It was the year of the individual with the advent of YouTube, MySpace and Facebook. I think this still holds true in 2009. It could be the agent that has a large following on Twitter or Facebook, the blogger on ActiveRain that gets referrals from other agents or the Broker that embraces online advertising that drives email and phone leads to their brokerage for a positive ROI.

What are the expectations of the emerging real estate consumer?

Consumers want to work with trustworthy Realtors and Brokerages that can sell their home quickly with the least amount of aggravation at the right price. That hasn’t changed. But what has is that they are increasingly demanding proof of the capacity to deliver on this promise rather than the unsubstantiated claims that characterized a lot of old-style marketing.

What changes should a Brokerage implement to ensure profitability in the future?

Reduce your overhead, office space, unnecessary expenses and Advertising that doesn’t have a positive ROI. Don’t be afraid of hoteling in your office space to give the agents maximum flexibility and decreased overhead. Plus, you need to invest in your agents. There may be more expenses in the short term but if you invest in the success of your agents, they will pay you back tenfold.

Basics of Search OR How My Site Gets Recognized

jwilson@homescape.com — 04 Nov 2009 17:11:42 CST

Ok, I will promise one thing: once you understand the basics of how a search engine orders results, mastering the parts that a search engine cares about is pretty easy. I am going to start with a basic story of how a search engine works, and then in future articles do a deeper dive for each element that a search engine uses to determine your ranking position.

The Spider Bot

Any search engine (Yahoo!, Google, Bing, etc) uses something called a search engine bot that spiders the web looking at different sites.

Translation:

Search engine bot = Automated program that never stops running.

Spiders the web = Clicks on links.

The bot starts on a specific page of a single Web site, clicks all the links on that page, visits all those pages, clicks all the links on those pages, and visits all of those pages. The little guy repeats this process, endlessly churning through all the interconnected pages of the Internet.

Historically, the usual starting point for the search engine bots is a place called dmoz. This place is nothing but a Yellow Pages directory-style site with different categories and lists of sites under those categories. From there, the little guy just goes and goes through as many sites as it can.

The first step in getting a site recognized is getting a link to it from a site that the search engine already knows about. So, if you have a new site, I would recommend doing all of the following to ensure that you get picked up by the bots as soon as possible:

1) Submit your site to either DMoz or Google.

2) Get a link back from a friend's site that has already been visited by the search engine bot. An easy way to tell is if you do a search for your friend's site and they come up (this indicated they have been visited by the search engine bot).

3) Do a search for yourself, and if any of your Facebook, Linkedin, or Myspace profiles come up, put a link to your new site on your profile.

OK, now that we have the basics of how a search engine gets to your site. Next week we will cover the parts of your site that the engine cares most about when crawling your site.

Homes Near Halloween Movies the Top 3

jwilson@homescape.com — 02 Nov 2009 23:28:27 CST

Ok, I know that the witching hour is over, and we are now down to slowly working our way through two metric tons of left over candy. Evan though it is a few days late, I thought I would finish up the Homes Near Halloween Movies countdown. So, without further ado...

#3 - The Birds

This movie not only being one of the best Hitchcock movies, this is one of the best movies of all time. What is more freakier than birds going nuts? Nothing. Birds are always staring at you, taunting you with their ability to fly. You know if they were people they would be the Bodhi of the people world, but who would be our Johnny Utah?

Reference:

#2 - The Exorcist

You know you are in trouble when you need a young priest and a old priest. Much like Child's Play killed the cabbage patch market, The Exorcist was the death blow to pea soup.

#1 - The Shining

Theme of the movie: You can't mess with Jack. For anyone that only knows Jack Nicholson as the old dude that sits on the sidelines at Laker's games, they need to watch this movie.

Plot Summary

Jack Nicholson is hired to be a caretaker for a resort in the wilderness of Colorado. Out of money because he is behind writing his new book, Jack takes the job to support his family. What Jack doesn't know is how the resort is haunted by spirits of the former caretaker that went crazy and murdered his family. On top of that, once it snows a couple of times, you can't get more than a few feet without freezing. Yes, but how are the health benefits?

Although Nicholson pulls of an amazing slow transition into madness, if you have ever known an professional author, I would say that this movie succeeds more as an accurate documentary of the writing process that happens to take place in a haunted hotel.

The Birds takes place in San Francisco, CA.

The Exorcist takes place in Georgetown, DC

Although The Shining was completely show in England, it was modeled after lodges found in Puget Sound, OR

Best San Francisco homes for sale

2275 41st Ave.

$649,900 | 2 Bed | 1 Bath

Perfect outer sunset starter home w/ dramatic ocean and marin headland views from all levels of this reverse plan beauty. Two bedrooms and remodeled bathroom upstairs. Two rooms with bathroom down (not warranted). Hardwood floors up. Decorative fireplace. Full ocean view windows in living room and dining room make this home very special. Original eat-in kitchen w/ skylight. Low maintainance deck with plexiglass wall for total comfort to enjoy the views. Lovely period details. Washer/dryer included.

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Best Georgetown homes for sale

4606 Laverock Pl. N.W.

$1,275,000 | 5 Bed | 3 Bath

Beautiful 1996 colonial in canal view. Open, light-filled floor plan (approx. 5,000 sf+) ideal for entertaining and family room with tall ceilings and doors, family room with fireplace and glass wall adjoins a large eat-in kitchen, generous bedrooms with closet space galore, lower level in law suite, walkout recreation room. An expansive desk overlooks a deep yard. One of the largest lots in the private community.

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Best Tacoma homes for sale

41651 S 86th St

$225,000 | 3 Bed | 2 1/2 Bath

This family home has new flooring throughout. New paint throughout. There is a year waranty on the home. Granite counters and open floor plan. Family neighborhood near schools as well as Military bases and hospital.

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Real Estate SEO - Running A Site Is Work

jwilson@homescape.com — 30 Oct 2009 21:09:14 CST

Anyone that tells you that running a Web site is easy is lying to you. Well, actually that’s a lie too, since running a bad Web site is very easy and running a good site is what requires some work. My buddy Jim spent the sunny summer months trying to make the coolest real estate Web site ever. At a great cost to his social life, he finally learned the horrible truth that he would never be a master of the Internet--and about 98% of his customers could care less about the things that he was doing online.

How involved you get with a site depends on two things: Your interest and your clients.

Your Interest:

If you have a high desire to learn all the ins and outs of technology, then you should spend some free time looking into what the web can do for you. On the other hand, if you never stopped your VCR from flashing 12:00, then you should probably learn the high level stuff and have someone else build a site that meets your needs.

You Clients:

Is your average client more apt to be online than answer their phone, or do you live in an area like Seattle where if you don't have a nice Web site you might as well be chiseling on stone tablets? My buddy Jim said with all the cool stuff he added, what he should have done was make a simple site that was nothing more than a good looking welcome mat. Something that gives people a good sense of who you are and what you have to offer.

Now the hard part, how do you get people to even see your welcome mat?

Next week’s we will start on the basics of search.

Homes Near Halloween Movies 5 Childs Play 4 Halloween

jwilson@homescape.com — 30 Oct 2009 21:04:02 CST

Movies that make you go, that was f'ed up slash their way to numbers 5 and 4 on our Homes Near Halloween Movies Countdown.

Best Homes Near Halloween Movies Countdown

#5 Child's Play #4 Halloween

I am not saying that Child's Play ruined it for the Cabbage Patch Kid, but it certainly didn't help. The story of doll that houses the spirit of a cold blooded killer, Child's Play is a great movie if you are tired of spending money on stuffed animals. Pop in the video and watch your child become freaked out every time he sees Tickle Me Elmo.

Known as the end all be all of, how in the f do you die from that movies, Child's Play holds a soft part in cinematic history as the cuddliest yet dumbest plots of all time.

The movie Halloween is creepy. The picture on the VHS box is creepy. The story is creepy. The monster is creepy. This movie rates the highest in that is f'ed up. The story of Michael Myers, a boy that just needed a hug, is chilling from start to finish.

Dude, I can't even go on... Let's just skip to the houses.

Child's Play takes place in Chicago IL and Halloween takes place in South Pasadena CA.

Best Chicago IL homes for sale

710 West Barry Avenue 1

$519,000 | 4 Bed | 3 Bath

Duplexed unit, largest in property!!! sold in as is condition-seller does not provide survey or termite inspection-pre approval or proof of funds required with all offers-earnest money in certified funds only-addendums provided upon accepted price-no disclosures-taxes ororated at 100%-allow ample time for response to offers

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Best South Pasadena CA homes for sale

402 El Centro St. #5

$515,000 | 3 Bed | 3 Bath

Reo property beautiful tri level town home in a popular complex in south pasadena, end unit close to pool and spa, 3 bedroom each with own bathroom!!!rooms separated for complete privacy, laundry upstairs on master bedroom level, 2 car attached garage, gorgeous living room with brick fireplace/custom wood bookshelf/wet bar, living room area flowing out to a sizeable and private patio, formal dining room, a lovely/fun attic space between 3rd and 2nd floor good for children's playing room/storage, highly sought after south pasadena school district, walking distance to arroyo vista elementary school, clean and well maintained until ready for move-in, the units is in this complex are rarely on the market. Do not miss this opportunity!!!

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Homes Near Halloween Movies 7 Poltergeist 6 Rosemarys Baby

jwilson@homescape.com — 30 Oct 2009 20:40:55 CST

A movie that cursed a child and a movie about a cursed child are numbers 7 and 6 in our Homes Near Halloween Movies Countdown.

Best Homes Near Halloween Movies Countdown

#7 Poltergeist

#6 Rosemary's Baby

No monster movie has ever had the legend about the making of the movie outshine the movie itself, until Poltergeist came along. From the classic "Their Here" line to the crazy gypsy midget psychic, this movie throws in everything from the book of creepy things that you could have in a movie, but it is the legend of Poltergeist that makes it frightening.

Two of the man actors, a couple of stage hands, I think the lighting guy, and the dude that brought all died in odd ways either during the filming of the movie or shortly after (some people would also include Craig T Nelson having to do the sit-com Coach as part of the curse). You combine all that with a movie about a house built on a burial ground and you have a successful recipe for an awesome legend.

Rosemary's baby on the other hand didn't need a secondary legend to make it creepy. You are a normal family, except for your wife's haircut, you get married, and you are expecting your first baby. Everything is great, except the father of the baby is Satan. Doubtful if either the combined powers of Montel or Maury could resolve this who's my baby's daddy issue.

Notice I refrained from doing a cheap Roman Polanski joke.

Poltergeist takes place in Simi Valley, CA and Rosemary's Baby takes place in New York, NY.

Best Simi Valley CA homes for sale

987 Roldan

$569,900 | 4 Bed | 2 1/2 Bath

The mona lisa... Is no more a work of art then this gorgeous 4 bedroom home with atmosphere of graceful elegance, yet a comfortable home for a large family. Large bedrooms, granite entry, media niche, kitchen with island and large comfortable family room with fireplace. Beautiful professionally landscaped yards complete with arbor and custom gates!

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Best New York homes for sale

225 E. 34th St. 9a

$585,000

The charleston's spectacular modern lobby complete with a 24/7 doorman, concierge services and more. Everything happens on the 2nd floor at club charleston featuring a plush lounge, fitness center and zen-like garden. Residences are spacious and bright with clean lines, high ceilings and fabulous finishes. Custom gourmet kitchens are open, airy, streamlined and include professional-grade appliances. The baths provide a sleek, modernist aesthetic with lavish custom appointments. Comfortable layouts progress with a natural logic while hardwood floors unify rooms with inviting warmth double-insulated windows quietly look out city views.

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Homes Near Halloween Movies 9 Night of the Living Dead 8 Blair Witch Project

jwilson@homescape.com — 30 Oct 2009 20:23:46 CST

Classic killer Zombies and a new classic destined to make you hurl are #9 and #8 Homes Near Halloween Movies Countdown.

Best Homes Near Halloween Movies Countdown

#9 Night of the Living Dead' #8 The Blair Witch Project

Night of the Living Dead took me years to not watch from the kitchen. You can call my Mom and ask her, there are a couple of movies that still frighten me, this is one of them.

Being the manly child that I was, I would attempt to watch this movie no less than 3 times every summer vacation. I figured daytime, in my house, safety the snack bar between me and the TV, what's the harm? I might have made it too if the first scene didn't involve a zombie attacking a vacationing couple in broad daylight. Out came Night of the Living Dead and in went my copy of the making of the Superbowl Shuffle.

In my review for Dawn of the Dead I covered that Night of the Living dead succeeded in being a unique take on racism through Zombies, The Blair Witch Project succeeds in making you nauseous.

Set in the back woods of Virginia, documentary film makers try to get to the bottom of the Blair Witch ledged. This movie has all the parts you require for a successful scary movie: Creepy woods, creepy story, and descents into madness. At only 83 minutes this movie should be a quick romp, instead you end up feeling like you just watched 3 hours of summer vacation home movies.

Timeline of me watching this movie: At about 42 minutes into the movie, I have to excuse myself and take a walk to steady myself. Trying to power through the movie I am able to make it another 15 minutes. Another quick walk. Another 5 minutes down. Decide that they eventually found the car and got home safely. Feel good story of the year.

Night of the living dead takes place in Evans City, Pennsylvania and The Blair Witch Project takes place in Burkittsville, Maryland (since Burkittsville is in the middle of a forest we will feature a home in nearby Middletown, MD).

Best Evans City NJ homes for sale

103 Cloverdale Dr.

$339,900 | 4 Bed | 2 Bath

This fantastic home is conveniently located to cranberry, but away from the congestion. This well maintain home is only 13 years old and features 4 bedrooms,2 full baths, formal living room, dining room, large three seasonal room, and 3 stall garage. Must see!

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Best Middletown VA homes for sale

3 Eastern Cir.

$339,500 | 4 Bed | 2 1/2 Bath

This home qualifies for 100% financing. What a find! fabulous middletown location. Built 2001 in community with no hoa & only 16 homes. This bright sunlit filled home is fresh & made for comfortable living. Fenced backyard is perfect for a family size vegetable garden. Sliders from dining room to deck great for grilling & entertaining. Easy access to commuter routes.

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Online Real Estate Reality Check

jwilson@homescape.com — 27 Oct 2009 15:17:47 CST

Online real estate reality check

A while back I was in the audience at an industry conference when a woman on stage asked this question:

At the end of the day, do any of these online real estate companies really help anyone buy or sell a home?

My initial reaction – as someone running one of “these” companies - was to dismiss the question as gratuitous, and dead wrong.

She’s just trying to provoke the audience. We provide all kinds of information on our site – of course we’re helping. And that’s what a REALTOR is there for anyway. So what’s the problem?

But the question kept creeping back into my head in the following weeks, prodding me to dig deeper into our value proposition and think about what it would take to answer “yes,” unequivocally.

How could we at HomeFinder.com – and, for that matter, my colleagues and competitors elsewhere in online real estate – provide a more essential service? And while our REALTOR partners would always be the ones who would get properties bought and sold, what could we do to help them get to that goal more efficiently?

Doing this, of course, would not be easy. The online real estate category is a crowded place. Consumers can view listings on myriad sites, all of which offer functionality that is strikingly similar. A set of standards and best practices has emerged as a result – which is good – but with that comes a pressure to stick to proven formulas, familiar features and accept assumptions as to what an online real estate site should and should not do. And that can be quite limiting.

So how do we move forward? I don’t have clear answers yet, but here are some things I believe to be true:

We need to take more risks

This sounds trite, but it’s true. When is the last time an online real estate company did something that made you think, “Wow, that’s gutsy?” Putting real estate listings online in 1994 was gutsy; Zillow took a big risk offering home values online ten years later. But who’s sticking their neck out now? It’s been awhile.

At the beginning of 2009, we expanded from being a technology provider to major newspapers across the country, previously known as Homescape, to rebranding as HomeFinder.com and growing our business to become a world-class home search and information site. While this is a goal we continue to strive toward, the HomeFinder.com name change was both a catalyst and reminder of not only what our site and our competitor sites offer, but also what consumers truly want -- to find a home.

Granted, this isn’t Page Six material. But we’re relatively new to the game and that also puts us in a position to more easily escape our own history than others. That’s an opportunity I plan to capitalize on.

Online real estate needs more big moves.

It’s not just about a house, it’s about living a life

Having all the listings – including FSBO’s – is something we at HomeFinder pride ourselves on. But we need to understand that for most people, the house is just part of what goes into a decision to live somewhere.

To make that important decision more effectively, consumers need to get a sense for what lies beyond the four walls of the home they see on the screen. Sure, most sites offer school ratings, basic demographic information and some high-level housing market data.

But today we can go beyond that. The emergence of the “Real-time Web” allows us to capture what’s happening now in any given place, to hear the ambient noise of a neighborhood. The number of new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) makes exciting mashups of place-based images, video and data possible in ways we could online imagine just a year or two ago.

It’s time to innovate in these areas.

A more effective model: better connect home finders with home sellers

Recently, a small storm erupted over a pornographic advertisement appearing on Realtor.com. While this was entirely inadvertent (apparently the result of an error in their ad serving system) it did underscore a point: The largely ad-based online real estate category often delivers a less-than-optimal user experience.

Ads, featured listings and the like can be quite effective for our agent and broker partners. But for consumers, they often just get in the way.

How can we deliver a better experience that gets consumers where they want to go more efficiently, while also placing our broker and agent customers in the right place, at the right time, on the right platform?

We’re working on some of the answers at HomeFinder.com as I write.

Call to action

In the end, the conference panelist’s question was not an annoyance – it was a call to action. To deliver even more value to consumers and practitioners. To rethink the online real estate formula. To challenge ourselves to question those things we take for granted.

I do not have many answers at this point, just directional notions like those I list above. But I’ll get there.

I hope you’ll join me.

Homes Near Halloween Movies 13 and 12 Evil Dead Texas Chiansaw

jwilson@homescape.com — 26 Oct 2009 21:29:11 CST

Best Homes Near Halloween Movies Countdown

#14 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre #13 Evil Dead 2

There is always something unnerving about chainsaws. Maybe it is the sound that they make, the way that they cut through trees with ease, or the burley men that tend to use them. Numbers 14 and 13 on the Homes Near Halloween Movies Countdown are the alpha and omega of chainsaw movies: Texas Chainsaw Massacare and Evil Dead 2!

Texas Chainsaw

Oddly enough the story that inspired Texas Chainsaw came from the spooky state of Wisconsin (oooh spooky). Tobe Hooper based the movie on a mix of Ed Gein, a serial killer from Wisconsin, and urban legends the govenment wasn't denying at the time.

Out of all the movies that are in the countdown, this has to be the most influenecial. Not only on all the other movies that followed its structure of an unstopable killer with no motive, but also being a huge part of the Mark Harmen movie Summer School.

If you had HBO in the summer of 1992, you probably saw this movie 120 times.

Evil Dead 2

Bruce Campbell. That should be all I have to say, why are you still reading this and not on the way to Blockbuster? The best of the B actors, Campbell stars as Ash. Ash just wants to get some alone time with his lady, and the next thing that you know they find a book of the dead, his hand gets cursed, and before you know it he needs to cut it off and replace it with a chainsaw.

Basically a more humorous remake of Evil Dead, this movie stands alone as having the biggest cult following of any low budget movie ever!

Filiming of Texas Chainsaw took place around Austin, TX and Evil Dead was shot in Wadesboro, NC. People that love chainsaws will love them both.

Best Austin TX homes for sale

13513 Albania Way

$214,900 | 4 Bed | 2 1/2 Bath

This home shows like a jewel! soaring ceilings, lots of natural light, all pergo and tile in downstairs. Large master bedroom with garden tub and separate shower. Gas fireplace. Central vacuum system, updated light fixtures and ceiling fans, new stainle ss dishwasher, decorator paint, wired for surround sound! recent privacy fencing and covered back porch!

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Best Wadesboro NC homes for sale

809 Red Hill Rd.

$111,900 | 3 Bed | 2 Bath

Top 20 Countdown:

17 - Dawn of the Dead

16 - The Ring

15 - Friday the 13th and 14 - Nightmare on Elm Street