Property Web Presence
Newspapers Slump as Readers And Real Estate Advertisers Migrate to the Internet and Other Media
The McClatchy Company, is the nations third largest newspaper chain, and it’s Chairman and Chief Exacutive Gary Pruitt recently said the advertising climate looks soft for the balance of 2007.
According to a July 20th article, “The real estate slump is compounding an ongoing structural downturn afflicting the industry as readers and advertisers migrate to the Internet and other media.”
The article goes on to say, “Other publishers are struggling, too: Media General Inc. on Thursday reported a 75 percent drop in profits, due in part to real estate troubles at its Florida paper. Dow Jones & Co. reported a 27 percent decline in earnings, although much of that was due to restructuring and stock-compensation costs.”
The article goes on to say, “Other publishers are struggling, too: Media General Inc. on Thursday reported a 75 percent drop in profits, due in part to real estate troubles at its Florida paper. Dow Jones & Co. reported a 27 percent decline in earnings, although much of that was due to restructuring and stock-compensation costs.”
“The downturn mainly reflected a significant drop in ad sales, especially at McClatchy’s California and Florida papers. Nearly three-quarters of the drop in ad revenue came from those two states, which are suffering from real estate woes. Real estate advertising was down 32 percent in California and Florida, causing a spillover effect that depressed other ad categories. ”
Meanwhile, online advertising revenues are up at most of the nation’s newspapers. Does this mean that buyers are no longer reading classified ads? Well, they are reading them online, that is why the advertisers are moving to that forum.
One great advantage to accessing real estate ads online is the ability to search by keyword, for example “forclosure,” “fsbo,” or “motivated seller.”
Another advantage to utilization of online media for real estate marketing is it’s interactivity. Links can be shared, websites can be accessed in real time, the buyer can travel directly to your property portfolio, see photos/videos of your property, etc.
It is becoming more and more important for real estate professionals to be able to keep up with this move to online media. They need to be flexable in harnessing it, showcasing listings through it, and advertising to out of state markets on it.
In the context of nationwide “leveling off” in real estate sales, ability to communicate to buyers, sellers, and property owners through their home computers can significantly make the difference between the number of days on the market it can take to go under contract.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )80% of New Homes are Found Over the Internet and 83% of Buyers Cited Pictures as the Most Important
Left, Lucie Thompson; right, Robert Bradley
PLAYING THE ANGLES Lucie Thompson, an agent at the Corcoran Group in Palm Beach, Fla., photographed a house on Jupiter Island, left. The company later hired a professional photographer, Robert Brantley, to shoot the same house. The results, right, speak for themselves.
The above photos and captions are reprinted from The New York Times article, “Making Every Pixel Count.” It reports, “In real estate, a picture can be worth more than a thousand words. Much, much more. When selling properties online, agents and Web designers say that the pictures buyers see of houses and apartments for sale are often the first — and sometimes the only — chance for a seller to make a good impression. Less-than-flattering pictures can turn buyers off and lead to lonely open houses.”
Indeed,
“Good photos will grab people’s attention and help you sell a home,” said Jacky Teplitzky, an executive vice president of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate in New York. “Bad pictures will absolutely give you trouble, because you won’t have any calls on it, and nobody will come to see it.”
Eighty percent of people across the country who bought a new home last year used the Internet while house hunting, and they rated photographs as the most useful tool in their search, according to a survey of buyers and sellers by the National Association of Realtors. The survey also found that 24 percent of home buyers got their first glimpses of their new homes on the Web, up from a mere 2 percent in 1997.
In many cases, it is the agents themselves who are snapping the pictures and posting them on the agency Web site. Because of this, it is important that sellers choosing an agent know who will take and pay for the pictures and whether a professional photographer is available.
“It’s so important to have photos that are professionally presented,” said Rosalind Clarke, a senior sales associate with the Corcoran Group in Palm Beach, Fla.
She added that she uses only pictures taken by professional photographers, because “if things look shoddy or unprofessional, not only are buyers going to find the property unappealing, they’re going to associate you with being shoddy and unprofessional.”
But there is little point in having good photographs or beautifully written prose describing a home if you don’t have a Web site that is easy to find and easy to use — and this holds true whether you’re using a broker who will list your home on an agency Web site or you’re trying to sell your home yourself and are creating your own Web site or listing your home on a site like Craigslist.
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Marketing Real Estate Where Markets Are 