The Michael Bean Group Is Ahead of the Game ... NH Real Estate Ads Shifting from Print to Web

The Michael Bean Group Is Ahead of the Game ... NH Real Estate Ads Shifting from Print to Web

real estate Real Estate Ads Shifting from Print to Web

Three new studies say the $11.6 billion real estate ad market is set to shift from print to the Internet.

This year real estate ads in daily papers are up: 19 percent in the second quarter of 2006, according to the Newspaper Association of America. But consulting firms Classified Intelligence and Borrell Associates, as well as investment bank Piper Jaffray all say that won''t last.

Borrell says the Internet real estate ad market, now about $2 billion, will pass the now-$4.3 billion newspaper ad market by 2010. "We see newspapers losing at least seven points of market share by 2010," Borrell Associates President Gordon Borrell says.

Newspapers claim an estimated 37 percent of the market now, and the shift would mean a difference of as much as $1.8 billion in annual revenue. Even this year, Borrell expects a fall. He says the big gain at dailies that belong to the newspaper association masks a collapse at weeklies and alternative papers, and believes print overall will lose more than two market-share points this year alone.

Newspapers say they are fighting back, Classified Ventures, a joint venture of Belo, Gannett, Tribune, McClatchy, and The Washington Post, has started or bought a number of real estate Web sites, including home-appraisal site Homegain, apartment search site Apartments, and Homescape, a portal linking the online real estate sections of different newspaper sites around the country.

They''re also beefing up real estate sections of Web sites such as ChicagoTribune.com.

Source: BusinessWeek Online, Timothy J. Mullaney (09/08/2006)

http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2006091105?OpenDocument


Penny for your thoughts?
How about a chance to win a new iPod!