By starting a blog project in the winter, a solid presence can be established before the spring selling season begins. This is the best scenario for working the content into an effective blog during one's slower times. Once your blog is established the effort to maintain it takes considerably less time. A couple of hours a day to get a good blog started can require only a couple hours per week to maintain.
Once established, maintenance and content can be outsourced for increased productivity. Content can also be easily added via a smart phone from the field in just minutes.
Getting a blog up and going is the hardest part. During the first few weeks allow one hour per day to write one article. Wondering what to write? Just look at a few blogs out there and you'll get some ideas pretty quick. I advise you to just write short articles about whats happening in your area. Interesting homes, new restaurants, fascinating people all make good topics. Once you get the rhythm and habit of the process the future posts begin to come much easier.
New blogs can be up and running in minutes by establishing an account at one of many free blogging sites. Two you may want to start with are blogger.com and, WordPress.com. If you like, just open two accounts and work with both of them until you figure out which one works best for you.
There are many others of course, and beyond these, the hosted site the next logical step. Before spending the money and I recommend the free site to get going and then making the move to a hosted account after you get comfortable and experienced. By getting your feet wet on the free sites you'll find lots of ideas and figure things out that you want to include or avoid in your next blog.
After a while you'll want to start a new hosted blog and do it under your own personal domain. The 'starter blog' can be maintained to feed the new bigger domain. You can use the fist to link to and bring authority to the next. All these little efforts can build a substantial web presence before you know it! Starting now is your best marketing move. Get going.