Suppose you and your family were out for a walk and you came to a very busy intersection in your hometown. Now, just before you’re about to cross you remember reading an article on the Internet about the number of pedestrian fatalities at that particular intersection published by the Department of Transportation and Safety. The report stated that the fatalities were so bad that there was only a 5% chance of folks making it safely to the other side and a 95% chance they wouldn’t. Would you still cross that street? Well unless you’re the type of person that enjoys base-jumping or wing walking you would I’m sure find a safer route to take. My example I know is very extreme, but when you’re trying to expose decades of corporate advertising that has conditioned home sellers to believe that advertising their home will actually help sell it, you need to be extreme.

Every year the National Association of Realtors® publishes a report called the NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. This report is generated from a six-page questionnaire that is mailed to a national sample of 100,000 recent homebuyers and sellers who purchased and sold their homes within a given time frame. Say, mid-2003 and mid-2004 based on county records. It generates a response rate of 8.2 percent. Many homebuyers and sellers that I have spoken with have never seen this report. Most folks have never even heard of such a report. One very good reason may be that it has nothing to do with their everyday lives. And that makes perfect sense. Unless you’re selling or buying a home.

To a home seller this is with out a doubt the single most important report they will ever read. Why? Because in this report is the information they need to learn how homebuyers work. How they look for homes and what tools they used to find their next home. So how does this benefit a home seller? Well, if you know how homebuyers work. You now know what you really need from your real estate agent to sell your home. And advertising your home in a newspaper or home guide or magazine isn’t one of them.

Now depending on the agent you speak with they will tell you that according to the NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 53% of buyers used the newspaper to look for a home. 53%. Now that is impressive. And that’s exactly what the report states. What they won’t tell you is that of that 53% that started to look for a home from a newspaper ad only 5% “actually” purchased the home they saw in a newspaper ad. Only 5%. Not so impressive any more. The figures get even worse when looking at home guides or magazines. Only 2% of all homebuyers found the home they “actually” purchased using a home guide or magazine. Only 2%. Now, if you’re a home seller do you really want to use a method to sell your home that has a 95% to 98% failure rate? Maybe you will be one of the lucky home sellers that fall into the 2% and 5% category.

Real estate agents know and are taught that advertising does not sell homes. So why do real estate agents shoot themselves in the foot by telling home sellers it does when the national association they belong to puts out a report every year that says the exact opposite? The answer is simple. Most real estate agents take the, Ask Me No Questions and I’ll Tell You No Lies approach to selling real estate. It’s this type of approach to selling real estate that costs home sellers thousands of dollars in the form of higher listing commissions. Real estate agents are literately taking your money to their bank on the fact that most home sellers have never seen the NAR report. Sellers have been conditioned to believe newspaper-advertising works.

And don’t expect to see an article like this in your local newspaper either. Some of the biggest newspapers in

Besides, placing a sellers home in print makes sellers think they are actually getting something for the thousands of dollars they are paying their real estate agent to sell their home. Real estate agents advertise in newspapers for a number of reasons least of which is to actually sell your home. So lets now take a look at some of the reasons real estate agents advertise in newspapers and home guides / magazines.

The first and most important reason agents like to advertise is to get listings. Hard to believe but true. Agents will tell you they advertise for the benefit of the home seller. We now know for a fact form the information in the NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers report that just isn’t true. Open any real estate section of any newspaper and you will see full page color ads of homes under a real estate companies name or agent banner. Home sellers look at these ads to see which company or agent does the best job of advertising homes. They want the best exposure they can find for their home. Thinking the ads will help sell their home. What they don’t know and are not told is this. The larger real estate companies will always have the largest ads. Because they have the most money. You may see a two page spread with at least 100 homes listed on both pages. What these companies fail to tell you is that they may have a current inventory of 300 to 400 homes. With such a large inventory of homes how often do you think your home will be in that big ad they are running?

The second purpose for running ads is to gain buyer leads. If you do the math you’ll see that there’s a lot of buyers leads to be had running newspaper and home guide/magazine ads. Think about it: if 53% of all buyers start their home search with newspapers and home guides/magazines, and only 5% and 2% actually end up buying a home using these two sources, that leaves 46% of all homebuyers as potential leads for real estate agents to snatch up and try to sell them a home!

The third reason is so the agent can self promote. The more their name is out in front of the public eye, the more comfortable people become with them and are more likely they will call that familiar company name or agent when thinking about listing their home. It’s a mini form of public name branding.

Here is something else for home sellers to think about. When you first were looking for the home your in right now. How did you find out about that home? Did you call any newspaper ads, home guides or magazines about a home that peaked your interest? The NAR Profile says 53% of you did. Did you “actually” buy the home you called about? The NAR Profile says 95% and 98% of you didn’t. The fact of the matter is, advertising your home in print ads just doesn't work.

I know this is a hard fact to swallow but true. Now you know the truth from the highest authority in real estate. The National Association of Realtors®. It doesn’t get any higher than that in real estate.

Bill Brynelsen is a real estate agent in Spring Grove Illinois. His forth coming book “The Truth Behind The For Sale Sign”©. Gives readers valuable insight into the tricks real estate agents will use to get your listing/money. Visit Bills real estate web site at http://www.mypadd.com or email him your real estate questions at info@mypadd.com. You just may save yourself thousands on your next real estate transaction.

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