RealTown's RealTalk

Hi Jim,

Not sure where you live but here in Arizona 99% of agents have dropped print ad's long ago, especially in the "big" paper.  I will still advertise occassionally in the local independent paper but so far this year I have maybe spent $100...  Our local big hitter newspaper can hardly handle two pages of homes for sale each week and we have over 50,000 homes on the market in Metro Phoenix area if that tells you anything. 

My sellers understand completely when I tell them print ad's are a waste of time and money and are far more excited that their homes show up on over a dozen web sites.. I think that the Mega newspapers are a dinasour and will soon phase out with the internet as a replacement for all the news people care about.  Even the Homes and Land, Harmon Homes freebe magazines at the grocery stores are almost non existant.  Spend your money on the internet... seems like that is our advertising medium these days and is very cost effective..

Gloria Handley

RE/MAX Achievers

Jim,

I just explain to them the numbers (percentages) and it seems to back up what they have read and discovered by surfing the net on their fact gathering.

Broker Dave Lowe / e-PRO Two4One of Orlando

Jim,

I'm looking for new ideas on how to drive people to my website.  I haven't spent money on magazines, newspaper, neighborhood, mailouts etc. for several years.  My business has mostly come from church, my husbands connections at work, a home flipper I work with for years, friends and referrals from my broker.

For years I participated in my neighborhood newsletter by sharing yearly stats.  I would split one story vs two story.  I would list things such as listing price, sq footage, sold price, price per sq footage, days on the market and such.  At the bottom I would share what houses were on the market and what they were listed for.  Then the newsletter stopped which I was disappointed because it was free advertisement for my business.  A couple of weeks ago I snail mailed everyone in the neighborhood statistics for yearly averages January, 2004 through June, 2008 for the breakdown of one story vs two story. Plus what was active on the market at present.

I went to a 40th anniversary for a couple in the neighborhood and was approached separately by 4 families thanking me for the information.  Several nights later I did my nightly walking and was approached by 3 more families who were excited to get the information.

I told each family I planned on sending another such list by January and in that letter I would ask for email addresses so I could send the information faster and would no longer do it snail mail.  Everyone of them said they were more than happy to send their email address.

Now that the hard work is done by accumulating data for the last 4.5 yrs I can easily keep it up.

Eventually I would like to send them to my website to get that information.  Next I want to target a second neighborhood and build from their.

Note:  In my neighborhood we have 5 other realtors.  I did not send the data to their homes.

If you would like to see what I send, send me your email address and I'll be happy to share.

Joy Collins, ABR

Joy.Collins@ERA.com

www.JoyCollinsRealEstate.com

We still maintain a "Office"  4 x 6 inch add in the paper.  It has agent names, New listings and our website.  This is for the benefit of the Sunday morning coffee & paper group.  However, most of our traffic comes from referral, websites and networking. 

I recently tracked the incoming calls for source.  We had a few from the paper, nothing from Real Estate Today and on the weekends a lot of sign calls. However, most came thru the websites.  Nothing from Realtor.com.   Yahoo was a biggie.  The Point2 sights had the late night lookers, Yahoo/Google had the weekends.

When the websites are "busy" we get alot of people trying to sell us referrals and leads.

In answer to your question.  Money spent on the websites is much better spent then on the print ad.

Jim Clauser writes "I am considering dropping all my print advertising and throwing that $700.00 a month towards my website, direct mail and such."
 

Good move Jim. The only print advertising I do is for open houses, and I only do that during the slow, winter months with an open house banner at the top of the ad. The rest of the year online advertising keeps me busy.
 

Michael Richman, MUP, MBA
Realtor, ITI, SRES, e-Pro, CBR
Licensed Real Estate Broker and Principal
Herndon Eagleton Real Estate - Here For You
450 7th Avenue, Suite 948 New York, NY 10123
Phone 917-991-2528 Fax 212-613-8608
mrichman@HerndonEagleton.com
http://www.HerndonEagleton.com
 

I think it depends upon your market whether you need print advertizing or
not. With historic properties you are dealing with an older clientele and
many still get preservation magazines and look at them. Sometimes they
phone, many times they email us. These magazines have a tendency to sit
around for years and hardly a month passes that we do not have someone call
on an ad from a magazine two or more years old. With waterfront people have
a tendency to pick up the local paper and the local RE book when they are in
the area to see what is available.

Dave Johnston GRI, e-PRO, CRB, ABR, CPC
"The Old House Man"R
Principal Broker
www.AntiqueProperties.com
530 E. Main St. #528
Richmond, VA 23219
mailto:oldhouseman@verizon.net
(804) 343-7123