If you are a non-Realtor (little ‘R’) civilian, close your ears for a couple of paragraphs. I’ll be back to you in a moment.
It was update time at the San Diego Home Blog. I was one bloggy upgrade behind. It has been well-documented that while I hang with the geeky kids, I am a poser, so each time I am faced with an upgrade, I approach the task with much trepidation. That’s what the Internet has done for us; we have all this information, arguably too much. I can Google my way through the twelve steps to building a nuclear reactor in my back yard, and I might even succeed. Chances are, though, I would just blow myself up.
So it goes messing with your own code. But, I am proud to say I did it. I upgraded to Thesis 1.6 this morning and didn’t even hurt myself. It’s something I have been wanting to do for awhile for one reason — to take advantage of the most coolest of cool drop-down menu features.
Now, if you hover over the San Diego Housing Snapshot tab above (and I will be having a renaming contest for that guy very soon), you will see a drop-down list of communities. Thanks to Zillow’s Local Market Explorer plug-in with information down to the neighborhood level, you can see information on trends, schools, and recent sales for your favorite zip code (like Scripps Ranch, for instance).
I have created a few pages to get things started, and will be adding more shortly (after I deal with a pesky request for repairs). In the meantime, I am aware that we are dangerously close to becoming “The San Diego Home Blog Brought to You by Zillow,” but I think it’s good stuff, so I’ll risk it.
I also added a tab, finally, which redirects to our home search platform. Unfortunately, the redirect takes you far, far away to our web site, which is bad form if I want to keep your attention. If anyone knows how to use the Wordpress custom redirect feature to open a page in a new window, do tell. On the other hand, all I really need is for Diverse Solutions, the platform provider, to hurry up and give me a plug-in (hint, hint).
Civilians, you can come back now. Check out my new tabs. Cool, huh?
Big update! Huge thank you to Jeffrey Douglas for solving my little redirect dilemma. Dang, it’s good to know people. 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kris Berg is Co-Owner and Designated Broker of San Diego Castles Realty. If not-so static web sites are your thing, go here at once where you will find loads of real estate information including homes for sale, market trends, floor plans and more. Kris's hobbies include fencing and spot welding. She likes kittens. 
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You rock Kris.
Now, youI’ll just have to add some text descriptions to those pages to give them a little bit more of a “personal” feel.
Great hanging out with you Sunday in the lovely Scripps Ranch!
Wow, great plugin! I hope it works on my blog here in Northern Virginia!
I have a secret. The last time I updated WordPress, I DIDN’T BACK UP FIRST! And I didn’t blow up!
Reckless, I know, simply reckless.
Kris,
Thesis 1.6 absolutely rocks. I’ve been having some fun with mine too. On my to do list I want to take the Local Market Explorer links that I currently have in my Sidebar to a tab in the NavBar like you’ve done. Very nice by the way. I’m still working out the kinks on mine, like Yelp Reviews for instance. It’s very cool to see the local searches that people put into Google,Yahoo,AOL and they find your site with the LME plugin. Great job on your Thesis blog.
Hope for all the bitter renters:
http://www.fanniemae.com/homebuyers/support-for-renters.html
I’m also using the WP local market explorer plugin from Zillow. I think it’s been a great addition to my site. But instead of linking directly to those pages, I have created a page for each community which includes additional information including a Trulia chart and links to homes/condos/foreclosures for sale. The Zillow link is towards the top under the Trulia chart.
My goal is to take advantage of all the good info that Zillow is providing for my readers, while still adding my own value. Otherwise, my site visitors could just go to Zillow…why would they need me?
Here’s the page which is listing all of the communities (not all of the communities have pages set up yet):
http://www.archcityhomes.com/market-reports/
and a sample community page:
http://www.archcityhomes.com/2009/10/brentwood-housing-market-trends-homes-for-sale/
I’d love to hear if you have any suggestions to improve upon the format.
I have been working for my WP blog and haven’t tried to customize it just like the way you mentioned. I do post real estate market report on blogs.