On the web, it's still location, location, location, so keep your site local. If you do a search for Berkeley and homes, it's hard not to find Serkes' page. If you look for information on South Lake Tahoe, you'll probably find Ijams' site. But that doesn't mean your site shouldn't have a personality. If I get an email from someone who visited my site, that means they liked what they read, and there is likely to be chemistry between us.
Content is king.
There is already an information overload on the web, so what you want to offer is information that will help your potential customer. Most get overwhelmed at what they need to do and call me for help. Nienberg designed his page to look like a daily newspaper to include all the areas of content that Lockwood wanted to offer. Serkes spent most of his time initially designing the structure of his site, so that as he updates the content in the future, it is still organized in the same fashion. Be fast and be elegant.