Realtors Mixing Media, Avoiding Print 10-29-2007

Only 15% of surveyed real estate agents still advertise in print, according to a survey of Realty Times readers conducted by Classified Intelligence. Nearly half of respondents said they were increasing their ad spending in 2007, down from 58% who said so in 2006. "When you combine the relatively high effectiveness ranking of print with the fact that only 14% of total print users use it primarily because it is effective, the implication emerges that agents and brokers don't see advertising in general as a very effective marketing tool," said Sue Stenberg, survey author, in a statement. Realtors said they were spending no more than 10% of their ad budget on any one type of media. More than one-fifth of respondents said they were using blogs and one-quarter were trying social networking. Eight in 10 Realtors personally paid for at least one-half of their ad spending and nearly two-thirds said they paid for at least 75% of their ad spending. More than one-half said their individual, national or corporate offices each paid for less than one-quarter of their ads.