Spinoff: Do you advertise in Home magazines locally?

[ISellRiverview]

Just curious as to how many of you do ads in local home magazines like the kind you find at the grocery store or video rental store. If you do:

Do you always do color, or black & white? Do you get a full page ad?

And, what has your return rate been like? Do you get more buyer or seller calls from your ads?

The ones around here are upwards of $300+ for a full page color ad and I am wondering if its worth the money.

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

No way, it is worthless. Pay all that money into a good Website. It will work 10 fold

[BuyHawkeye]

I did it to the tune of $500/mo for about a year. Wish I had that money back... To be fair, it is hard to quantify the increase in traffic (if any). I suspect I obtained a lease/option from the ads, but that didn't justify the expense so I stopped.

[Malok]

I used to a lot - back before the internet was as popular as it is today.


Nowadays, its rare that I do that sort of advertising. Its just too expensive for what you get.

[BarryC]

I used to do it on the mortgage side. Never had any sort of return.

[NealRM]

We used to run the local real estate magazine. Up to about a year ago, it was worth while for the Realtor's to advertise. Our rates were cheap, $80 per page in color. We stopped the magazine when we realized that we could offer the real estate agents more bang for the buck by expanding our web advertising and photo service. Not only could we offer the agents more, we also cut our expenses.

So if you can find a magazine that will publish a full color ad for under $80 I would say it is worth it. Otherwise, put the money into a good web-advertiser.

[Mack Perry]

I heard last week that a buyer is 2400% more likely to find their new home on the internet than in one of the home magazines. Put your money where you will obtain the largest return on investment, you site.

[ericbramlett]

We published our own 12-page mag & distributed to ~100 locations for about a year. It was a very expensive learning experience.

[jasoncrouch]

I haven't advertised in a Homes magazine since the late 90's. I don't think the lead quality is very good, and it always seemed high for what you got.

[lprest]

We do occassionally, pretty much just to make Sellers happy. We explain to the Sellers that the magazine is put together half a month ahead of publishing, so is out of date somewhat by the time it comes out. Still, a lot of buyers DO pick it up and look.
We usually do 1/2 page color (almost $300), and I don't know that we get many calls from it. We get the most from the MLS, the sign, and internet.