Print Media Is Dead.

I agree, too expensive and it does the sellers no justice. Great point!

My phone rings much more from my website presence than it ever did from print ads.  I know where my money is going... although I do appease a seller with at least one, usually a group ad of their property. Until the local public understands the 'new' way of marketing homes is online, I'll spend 'a little' the old fashioned way.

Print is definitely dead! I tell sellers in my listing appointment that they don't want me to spend my money advertising in print and here's why! I also tell them that the average agent spends 4-5% of their marketing dollars on online marketing. I spend 60-70% of mine online. (I believe that statistic originally came from NAR).

When we talk about how they're looking for their next house and the decline in newspaper readership overall it doesn't take them long to get the point!

That doesn't mean that a few months down the road, if the house hasn't sold, they won't try and get me to run a print ad!

This is difficult to gauge,  my opinion is print still has some effectiveness and there is a portion of the population that does not use the web.  In my area we see it quite often with lower income first time buyers and also older retirees. 

There is only so much you can spend on online marketing before its utility starts declining.  I feel that it is important to have a balanced budget between Print and online media.

I don't think that is is dead or will ever completely die.  I think that it is withering.  I'd rather get some news through the old-fashioned print media.

I believe Roger is talking about something different.

From a news perspective, I love newspapers and read them on a regular basis.

But we're talking about real estate marketing. I teach classes and I alway survey the classes and ask about the number of leads they're getting off of print and the quality of those leads. It's pathetic! Most ads are producing absolutely no phone calls. Now part of that may be the current state of our market. But I don't believe that's the entire explanation.

As for Dan's comment about lower income and retirees using print more frequently, he's probably correct. The next question is do you know your target market and how to reach them? If your target market is young families or baby boomers or first time home buyers I'd still argue that online is more effective than print. And you're biggest investment online doesn't need to be money. I believe it's often time.

My two cents!

Print...do they still do that?

My listing presentations are all about online presence (local MLS, Realtor.com, Craigslist, a few local sites, etc).

And I do advertise with the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun - but it's in their online versions.

The only print I do regularly is for open houses.  And that's in the local Annapolis paper.  

If a listing is unique enough - I might do it in a home magazine - but otherwise I'd rather focus my energies online. 

Newspapers may be dead but tell me how is it that I produce 90,000 copies of The Real Estate Book in Brooklyn, Ny and the Bronx, realtors get calls from the book, sell homes from the book and when I go around to drop off the new book there are none remaining in the store that I left them in.  I have some vendors, who let us leave the books, actually call me to tell me to bring more!

Why Chuck, it's obvious.  Brooklyn and the Bronx are full of "lower income first time buyers and also older retirees."

Different things work in different markets.  You have to know your market and your target audience.

Erby, Do your homework before you make assumptions pal.

In Brooklyn the population was spread out with 26.9% under the age of 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 30.8% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to 64, and 11.5% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. Brooklyn has more women, with 88.4 males for every 100 females.

The median income for households in Brooklyn was $32,135, and the median income for a family was $36,188.

Brooklyn's job market is driven by three main factors: the performance of the national/city economy, population flows, and the borough's position as a convenient back office for New York's businesses.^[10]

Forty-four percent of Brooklyn's employed population, or 410,000 people, work in the borough; more than half of the borough's residents work outside its boundaries. As a result, economic conditions in Manhattan are important to the borough's jobseekers. Strong international immigration to Brooklyn generates jobs in services, retailing and construction.^[10]

In recent years Brooklyn has benefited from a steady influx of financial back office operations from Manhattan, the rapid growth of a high-tech/entertainment economy in DUMBO, and strong growth in support services such as accounting, personal supply agencies and computer services firms.^[10]

Jobs in the borough have traditionally been concentrated in manufacturing, but since 1975, Brooklyn has shifted from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy. In 2004, 215,000 Brooklyn residents worked in the services sector, while 27,500 worked in manufacturing. Although manufacturing has declined, a substantial base has remained in apparel and niche manufacturing concerns such as furniture, fabricated metals, and food products.^[11] The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has a manufacturing plant in Brooklyn that employs 990 workers. First established as a shipbuilding facility in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard employed 70,000 people at is peak during World War II and was then the largest employer in the borough. The Missouri, the ship on which the Japanese formally surrendered, was built there, as was the iron-sided Civil War vessel the Monitor, and the Maine, whose sinking off Havana led to the start of the Spanish-American War. The Navy Yard is now a hub for industrial design firms, food processing businesses, and artisans, along with a growing film and television production industry. About 230 private-sector firms providing 4,000 jobs are at the Yard.

Construction and services are the fastest growing sectors.^[12] Most employers in Brooklyn are small businesses. In 2000, 91% of the approximately 38,704 business establishments in Brooklyn had fewer than 20 employees.^[13]

The unemployment rate in Brooklyn in March 2006 was 5.9%.

 

I can do the Bronx next If you like.

 

Bethm I'ver heard that the LA TIMES has discontinued their open hose real estate section and realtors there are totally online.

I personally believe print is on its way out. Especially in our technology-aged society, we are also aiming to be an eco-friendly society. Therefore, print isn't in as much demand as it used to be. Although it's always going to be nice to pick up a paper and read it over breakfast or read a magazine in bed..I think more and more people are going to their computers or iPhones now to read the latest news online than ever before.