Who here will fork it over to now pay for The Real Deal?

yayaa:

I try and check up on TRD everyday. Don’t see it as a self promotion/“useless” website.

If that’s the case, what’s your favorite real estate publication?

I do, too, but not for informational purposes.

Browse the content. 90% of it is about brokers, or information a broker would care to promote. What gets sold and by whom. What firms are selling the most product. Which brokerages are poaching which brokers. On rare occasions you get interesting, better researched articles or even analysis about developers, contractors, and city officials, but for the most part it is a gossip rag for the brokerage industry.

As of this morning at 10am, the most recent headlines above the break include two about brokers leaving/joining a firm, four about condo/home sales, one about a lawsuit against a broker being dismissed, one about a brokerage expanding its coverage, and coverage of NYCHA privatization. That is, four are explicitly about brokers, four deal with challenges that, while not specific to brokers, are often written from that perspective, and one general interest piece for the NYC area. A lot of the other coverage goes to new construction permits filed. As a developer, the shallowness of the perspective of everything except broker gossip makes it pretty clear that the site/print issue are meant to keep brokers apprised of what is going on in the market without actually exploring what any of it means in a larger contextual sense.

Yeah. Rant over, sorry. It's good for what it is, but I prefer to get my information on my market from other developers, municipal officials, consultants, etc. You get a more nuanced read on whats going on than from a blog. I know that is a super condescending attitude, btw. Don't mean it like that, but its true.