#OwnGrowProtect Listed in Top 50 Canadian Real Estate Blogs

Earlier this week we received notification from Jamie Sarner that our #OwnGrowProtect blog has been listed among his picks for Top 50 Canadian Real Estate Blogs in 2013. Coming in as Jamie's 11th pick of 50 in Canadian Real Estate Blogs was pretty cool, especially given the fact that we aren't entirely a real estate blog!

So I thought I would take this opportunity to talk a little bit about what we are doing here with our blog.

Our goal with the #OwnGrowProtect is to share information in 3 main categories. Home Ownership, Personal Finance and Protecting Yourself and the Ones You Love.

Home Ownership

Home ownership is the #Own part of our blog title. First Foundation was established in 2002 by Gord McCallum as a Canadian mortgage brokerage, assisting clients with arranging mortgage financing through Canadian mortgage broker (monoline) lenders. As such, early blogging and site content efforts focused heavily on laying the groundwork for understanding the mortgage process. As an example of this, First Foundation has developed an extensive mortgage glossary among other mortgage resources.

However the problem with solely sharing mortgage information all the time is that; typically speaking, it is only relevant to people who are looking to purchase a property or make changes to their current mortgage. For most of our clients and readers, this is a 3 month window every 3-5 years. So although "mortgages" is a very broad topic and has a lot of deep content that can be shared, it is hard to stay relevant and maintain regular blog readership. That is why we blog about the broader topic that is Home Ownership. Including:

• Mortgage Financing
• Real Estate
• Home Organization
• Interior Design
• Sustainable Living
• Municipal Politics

Protecting Yourself and the Ones You Love

With a desire to be more than just a mortgage brokerage and to offer even more choice and convenience to our clients, First Foundation Insurance was incorporated in 2011 and started offering insurance products to clients in Alberta in 2012. First Foundation Insurance is managed by Kathy Anders. On the #Protect section of the blog we share information from understanding insurance to the most recent fraud schemes you should be aware of. If there is something that Canadians should be aware of in order to protect themselves, chances are we are blogging about it. However a lot of our information on protection is contained in the pages of our website as well as our blog. Some of the services we offer with insurance include:

• Home Insurance
• Auto Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Business Insurance
  

Personal Finance

Although responsible financial management has always been something First Foundation brokers have advocated, 2013 is when we really started to share more information dealing with personal finance. Currently my family is undertaking a 52 week money challenge in the #Grow section of the blog as we try to save $13780 in 2014. I am also involved with a podcast called the #becausemoney podcast where Sandi Martin, Robb Engen and I discuss personal finance issues that matter to Canadians.

Top 50 Real Estate Blogs in Canada

So we would like to thank Jamie for including us in his list of top 50 Real Estate Blogs in Canada and take this opportunity to highlight some of the other Real Estate blogs he thinks are worth reading. I have taken Jamie's list and put it all together in a listly. Have a look through... certainly a lot of solid blogs there dealing with real estate in Canada.