Realtors Advertise Increasingly Online: Study

WebKnowHow
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; 04:22 AM

Real estate agents are actively using free-classified sites like Craigslist and Google Base and are planning to steadily reduce their advertising in newspapers, a new report from Classified Intelligence shows.

More than half the real estate agents (51 percent) who participated in a Classified Intelligence survey said they were advertising on free classified sites. Many said they plan to cut their newspaper advertising because it is no longer necessary.

"Print publications are no help," one Realtor told CI. "The Web provides more information to the customer and less wasted phone calls....It's the only way to go. I think in five years, 95 percent of my advertising will be done on the Internet."

The 74-page report, "Real Estate Advertising 2006," reviews spending by Realtors in print niche publications and newspapers; direct marketing; local newspaper Web sites, and national and local real estate sites.

"The trend is clear: Real estate advertisers are looking to reduce their spending in print, and move to other media, including online and direct-marketing techniques," said Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of Classified Intelligence. "While this has been a banner year for real estate advertising in U.S. newspapers, there's a cliff ahead -- and newspapers are already beginning to see a significant fall-off in real estate revenue."

Real estate advertisers spent $4.6 billion in U.S. daily newspapers in 2005, up 9.9 percent from 2004, the Newspaper Association of America reports. The category showed substantial increase in Q1 of 2006, but newspapers and newspaper companies have reported sharp declines during Q2.

The Classified Intelligence report was based on a survey of more than 100 real estate agents conducted in conjunction with RealtyTimes.com, a leading industry news site. It also includes a panel of nine global experts on real estate, including Dave Liniger, chairman of Re/Max; Sam Sebastian, director / classifieds and local for Google; Simon Baker, CEO of RealEstate.com.au in Australia, and Tim Fagan, president of real estate for Classified Ventures. The panel discusses specific strategies that real estate ad publishers -- whether newspapers, dot-coms or others -- can use to improve their revenue and services.

The report provides overviews of the real estate industry in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, India, Northern Europe and the United Kingdom. It is available at http://www.classifiedintelligence.com.