Sabrina at CribChatter performs a useful service for real estate buyers by diligently searching out and spotlighting interesting new listings, and revisiting ones that have lingered on the market for a while.
Sabrina recently suggested in a comment that s/he’s “thinking about shutting the site down:”
CribChatter’s traffic is at 5 year lows. People want to watch the train wreck (as the bubble imploded) but they don’t want to watch a normal market (or even one where prices are going up.)
Multiple bids? Properties being listed 30% more than just 3 years ago? No one wants to read about that.
We disagree with Sabrina’s diagnosis of the drop in CribChatter’s traffic. YoChicago’s unique visitor count hit a record high in January, for example. Our year-to-date traffic is up 27.8% over the same period in 2012, 48.3% over 2011 and 139.4% over 2010. Curbed Chicago also appears to be doing well, and may have drawn some traffic away from CribChatter.
We’ve occasionally linked to CribChatter posts on our Chicago Real Estate News page, and will spotlight more of them in the days to come.
Chicago home buyers benefit from being exposed to a variety of perspectives, including CribChatter’s. My recommendation: visit CribChatter for the cribs and ignore the chatter.