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Coldwell Banker listings to focus more on Web
Published April 17th, 2008 in Real Estate Industry, Happenings. by Marian Bennett, Coldwell Banker Tags: advertising.There will soon be a major shift in local advertising dollars. The huge spread that Coldwell Banker Northern California spends tons of $$$$$$ to advertise its listings each Sunday in the Peninsula Edition of the SF Chronicle will be no more as of this weekend, April 20, 2008. This new development is another step up into the future that local (Peninsula) ”Real Estate Section” readers
of the Chronicle will notice starting this week.
In the Peninsula Edition, the Half Moon Bay & Montara offices are limited to 10 spaces - 1 featured listing across the top of the page and 9 “liners” listed in columns by city. That’s because we share the entire 2-page spread with the other Peninsula CB offices. Our Peninsula Edition listings are not advertised in the San Francisco or other Bay Area editions. Listings in South SF or Pacifica that may be best suited for a San Francisco buyer will not be seen in the SF Edition of CB’s big ad. Of course, agents can pay to have their listings included in the Open Home Guide by County.
More and more people are using the web to search for their dream home. We’ve all been watching this shift occur for years now. Any why not when you can see multiple pictures, maps, detailed descriptions, neighborhood video, property blogs, and more. It is comforting to pick up a newspaper and peruse the real estate ads, but the number of people that pick up the phone from newspaper ads has got to be pretty small. We, the agents, have to get our copy & photos to the advertising reps several days before it goes to print. So some information can be out of date by the time the paper lands on your front step.
I suspect those company advertising dollars will be going toward new online pursuits. 
CB has already spent millions developing its online presence in places such as CaliforniaMoves, Trulia, Google, and Yahoo Real Estate, but as we all know, real estate marketing, real estate technology, online advertising, and new media industries can be interwoven and are changing rapidly. A great place to watch this unfold in on Transparent Real Estate.
At some point this had to happen, it was just a matter of when. I’ll still be reading the Real Estate Section as long as the paper still has one.
Marian,
This is a hot button for me as a Coldwell Banker agent in Contra Costa County. Newspaper advertising is still very important. I am a teckno agent, but homebuyers look in the real estate section on Sunday. We need both.
Coldwell Banker continues to reduce our newspapere exposure, but this oppinion is not shared by a lot of agents.
On the other hand. I truly appreciate the technology that CB offers.
I remain,
Thanks for your feedback, Sam. I get mixed reviews here - so the way I’ve handled it is to pay for the Open Home Guide myself, especially if it is important to my seller, otherwise I might pay for the ad the first weekend and then focus on the web from then on. I would love to hear from anyone who has an opinion about this.
Intriguing, very intriguing. Coldwell Banker is a very traditional firm, and if it’s making the decision to cut back on newspaper advertising, I have to assume they’ve looked at the numbers and realized the ROI just isn’t there any more.
On the other hand, Sam is right that in a lot of areas people like to look at the real estate section in the local newspaper. The caveat to that is the following: does that section help to sell listings, or does it only help to sell the agent?
In response to Kevin Boer’s question, California Association of Realtors Research Highlights indicated in 2007 “only 12 percent of all home buyers looked at newspaper/magazine ads to search for a home, while more than seven of ten home buyers used the Internet as a significant part of the home buying” process. When I hold open houses and survey attendees who walk in the door, approximately 25% came from ads and the other 75% came from signs or their realtor sent them. Sellers have been conditioned to expect that we will advertise for them. If the CAR statistics are correct then we must be marketing ourselves more than than property.