Realty Viewpoint: Newspapers Shoulda Been Nicer To Realtors

Newspapers have been crummy to the real estate industry for years, from ridiculous per-inch pricing to scathing editorials about commissions.

Now they're laying off editors, cutting down newsprint sizes, and wondering why they weren't nicer to their advertisers while they had the chance.

If they had been, they might not be losing 2.5 to 3.5 percent in circulation today.

A new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism suggests that newspaper advertising revenues fell 7 percent in 2007 after a flat 2006. They also lost seven percent of their newsroom staffs.

The biggest losses were in classifieds -- largely real estate, employment and automobiles.

To blame is the Internet where lines per inch don't matter but clickthroughs do. Innovators like Realtor.com, Zillow, Craigslist, Monster.com, eBay and Edmunds.com give consumers robust, information-rich sites to peruse. They can find homes and cars faster and see what they're buying.

Try selling a home today without a video, virtual tour or multiple photographs.

Realtor.com and Zillow provide free marketing to Realtors, and they're pro-Realtor. That beats overpriced lines per inch and fuzzy photos any day of the week.

Realtors have cut their print budgets and put more money on the Web. Online real estate advertising is projected to grow over 12 percent in 2008, projects Borrell Associates.

The only thing propping up real estate print ads is sellers. They want to see their agent spend money. Yet, in a Realty Times survey with Classified Intelligence, Realtors said print advertising is overpriced and ineffective, even if sellers remain unconvinced.

The real reason online advertising is growing is that it's tailormade for small fry, like the individual Realtor. They're spending more, not less on advertising than ever before, even with the freebies they get from real estate portals. They only get 25 percent of their marketing paid for by franchises, brokers and others. They pick up the tab for everything else which is why they want the best bang for the buck -- their personal website, billboards, yard signs, flyers, and direct marketing where they can promote themselves as well as their listings.

Newspapers come in a distant fourth place at a little over 11 percent of an agent's annual advertising budget.

That's where they deserve to be until they deliver more value and stop piling on the industry.


Written by Blanche Evans
March 21, 2008