by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
Fishwrap: Thank you for calling the classified sales department of the Middletown Journal, Southern Middle County’s premier newspaper. How may I help you today?
REALTOR: Good morning, this is Bill Smith from Middletown Fine Properties, over on Pennsylvania Avenue. I just took a new listing and am holding an open house this Saturday.
Fishwrap: Congratulations, Bill! I’m sure you’ll sell that home in no time with our new Strategic Selling Program, here at the Journal.
REALTOR: Hmmmm…what’s up with that? Did you drop your classified advertising rates now that more people are going online to start their home search?
Fishwrap: Well, Bill, we actually raised our rates because of the added value we’re bringing you.
REALTOR: Added value? Uh, oh. Can’t I just advertise my open house?
Fishwrap: Bill, you know that 83% of the public is now going online to start their home search, right?
REALTOR: Uh, yeah. That’s why I subscribe to Realtor.com
Fishwrap: We go even better than that. Bill. What used to cost $85 for a classified ad in the Journal, now costs $125…BUT, we distribute your advertisement and listing information to Zillow.com and Trulia.com. We’ll also write a blog post for you on Activerain.com, Realtown.com, AND place your listing on Craigslist.org for you. We’re a one-stop advertsiing shop for Realtors now! Think of us as your local advertising agency to assist you with online media buys. If you allow us to throw in financing information, from Bank of America, and have them feature it on their real estate center website, the cost drops to the original $85!
REALTOR: …but…but…I use Brian Brady for all my client financing.
Fishwrap: Hold on, Bill. If First American Title places a banner across on your online ads, the cost drops to $55 for what used to cost you $85 ! How’s that sound?
REALTOR: Well, what has Brian really done for me lately? Furthermore, First American is a great brand name, what have I got to lose? Let’s go for it!
Fishwrap: Can you e-mail me the MLS information? I’ll have it in this Saturday’s edition.
REALTOR: No problem. Thank you for making my life easier!
Fishwrap: It’s our pleasure, Bill. We’re glad to be of assistance.
Vacation Condos says:
is fishwrap classifieds a real business?
January 14, 2008 — 11:42 pm
Jeff Brown says:
You just know somebody will go out and buy fishwrap.com, right? 🙂
January 14, 2008 — 11:46 pm
Kaye Thomas says:
I’m afraid this isn’t the future.. but the present.. check out the LATimes online and some of the other local papers..
January 15, 2008 — 12:38 am
Bob Crain says:
Amazing…
I got a similar call from my “fishwrapper” the UT. Bla, Bla, Bla, oh, by the way our rates have gone up but look at all the added benefits we offer?!?
January 15, 2008 — 1:11 am
Eric Blackwell says:
@Brian- Spot on my friend. Well said.
And to think people got cheesed off at me when I called them ALL competition and had the ‘audacity’ to say “We are feeding the hand that will bite us…”
It is ALL about marketing channels, eyeballs, and exposure.
@Jeff- fishwrap.com has been gone for a while now (grin).
January 15, 2008 — 3:50 am
Missy Caulk says:
Brian, they are already doing this here. I ran one, numero uno ad last year in Homes magazine. She talked me into it by saying they are now on line. OK, one ad, Elaine.
No results…didn’t expect any but did it to prove my point.
Why would anyone pay, when all those sites syndicate for free?
Here’s my question? I’ve been trying to get it answered from everyone that is techy and no one knows?
You submit a listing to lets say vflyer, realestate shows, point2agent, number1expert….they all syndicate to zillow, trulia, etc…
Who wins?
Which website wins and is it syndicated (or accepted)from? You know that they are not posting the listing multiple times, because when you search the listing is only in once. Once in Zillow, once in Trulia, etc… Is it the first one or do some sites have more priority?
So got any answer?
January 15, 2008 — 4:33 am
Ann Cummings says:
This scenario concerns me very much as those who do buy into this don’t get the “feeding the hands that bite us” concept. And unfortunately that’s far too many agents. They just see the ‘easy’ part of having one entity do all this ‘great stuff’ for them….. We, the collective we, are and have been giving the store away more and more each day.
January 15, 2008 — 4:40 am
Glenn says:
Ann – in today’s society we often look for the easiest and most convenient way of accomplishing a task – ultimately, we pay for the convenience.
As business people, we should be fully aware of what we are doing and the benefits. All too often we are not measuring our ROI.
I am guilty as anyone. I purchased 6 months of banner advertising. I did not monitor the traffic (shame on me). When the vendor called for me to renew, I finally analyzed the traffic. The traffic was not such that warranted a renewal of the program.
January 15, 2008 — 5:17 am
Greg Swann says:
I asked this question last week in the podcast I did with Zillow’s David Gibbons. They have an internal hierarchy of reliability, essentially like this: Third Party Vendor < Broker's Feed < Agent's Manual Entry.
January 15, 2008 — 7:15 am
Diane Cipa says:
Brian: You are on the right track. Eyes open.
January 15, 2008 — 7:35 am
Matt in Atlanta says:
All these things can be done for free…some people are just to lazy to do it themselves and will pay for it.
January 15, 2008 — 8:33 am
Brian Brady says:
“It is ALL about marketing channels, eyeballs, and exposure”
Agreed, Eric…unless…
“We, the collective we, are and have been giving the store away more and more each day”
That happened 10 years ago with the R.com deal, Ann. The content is going online to these sites. I think the individual REALTOR has completely lost control of his/her inventory.
Is that bad or good?
Doesn’t it redefine your role?
January 15, 2008 — 8:49 am
Eric Blackwell says:
IMO, I don’t think that happened 10 years ago. (at least in my neck of the woods.) Or more correctly only partially to date.
Unless and until these other entities (3rd parties) are driving significant traffic LOCALLY to their sites, they have not won. They know this.
At any time along that continuum I can choose to stop firing bullets and put down my weapon. I choose not to do that. Right now in Louisville, we are able to drive more traffic via brokerage sites with ALL of the photos that satisfy MORE of the needs than R.com or T or Z for that matter. To date NONE of them has sent me local traffic data of searches for Louisville Kentucky to dispute that. (I still would love to see that…until then, it is still about the traffic and eyeballs and etc…and even then, they will own the traffic and eyeballs and etc…I won’t be agreeing. I will be capitulating.) (Just my opinion).
My personal opinion is that if we all gave in to R.com 10 years ago, my 120 agents in my brokerage would individually have had to pay over $750K in R.com “enhancement” fees to get photos up on their website, where we have provided that without registration (as well) to visitors to our site at no cost to them OR us. That buys a lot of bullets….
I will freely admit (as I have in the past)that this may be different in San Diego than it is here. But in Louisville and in many other places around the country, the fight ain’t over and the 3rd parties do not have the LOCAL traffic to declare victory yet. IMO ALL real estate is local.
Where I agree with you 100% is that we need to NOT be transactional in witholding IDX or MLS data online and force someone to “register” before viewing it. That harms us more than helps us…
We should not hoard the data we own but are slowly losing control of…we have the ability to provide it to our clients at the lowest cost AND in the most convenient manner possible.
I want EVERYONE to feel free to search the MLS or IDX and then contact our office when THEY are ready for more info. (That’s how I’d want to be treated.)
Yikes! Now I am gonna catch it from BOTH sides!! (grin)
Am I the only guy left who sees it this way? (probably am…)
**Eric straps on flak jacket and heads for the basement**
January 15, 2008 — 9:29 am
Robert Kerr says:
This is an interesting subject: the disintermediation of real estate marketing and advertising.
It’s taken less than a decade for print media to go from the primary format for marketing and advertising to superfluous.
Can the disintermediation of other components of the real estate industry – especially those which are primarily informational – be far behind?
January 15, 2008 — 9:37 am
Brian Brady says:
Eric:
I’m more in the camp of the registration for listings; quid pro quo but I’m really not in that game.
That’s my uninformed opinion.
January 15, 2008 — 9:47 am
Mariana Wagner says:
What we are all missing out here are the MULTIPLE BENEFITS hidden in the title of this post!!!
Fishwrap.
If you advertise in the local paper there is SO MUCH (non) target marketing that you get for that onelowprice. Not only will people who (still) subscribe to the physical paper see your ad, but so will the paperboy/girl, the recycling pick up drivers, people’s window cleaners, people’s nephews, nieces and grandchildren (when it is used to pack care packages), the old guy who uses it to swat flies, the homeless man who uses it for insulation (now THERE’s a fellow who would LOVE to attend your open house!) and … (of course) all the people who buy fresh fish.
Geesh! With all this AND the opportunity to be affiliated with lenders and title companies that you do not choose to use, you can’t GET any better advertising, IMHO. Sign me up!
January 15, 2008 — 9:51 am
jd says:
As someone that is just starting to research the RE industry, this strikes me as one of the great ironies in real estate today. Essentially, the most tech-savvy real estate agents (Bloodhound/RE.net readers) are complaining about the antiquated ways and pricing methods of the traditional newspaper industry, another embattled group and industry. Isn’t this similar to what a strain of technocrats are saying about traditional agents while favoring the online discounters? While the techsavvy RE agents here complain bitterly about the role and rise of discounters, they are eager to cast the traditional newspaper as antiquated and can’t wait for the rise of discounters such as Zillow, Trulia, Craigslist, your own blog, and other mechanisms to “disintermediate” newspapers. Here are some facts: Just as the Foxtons, Redfins, Zip Realtys, and other discounters haven’t hit on profitable models, neither have the Neighboroos, Backfences, AmericanTown’s, RealTown’s, Marchexes, or the neighborhood features of Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com or every other Johnny-come-lately hyper-local business in disintermediating the community newspapers. Ask yourself: As simple as listing open houses and property transfers from the town clerk are, is there any consistent online source other than a community newspaper that does this for your town? None of these companies, not one hyper-local start-up is predicated on investing in content, not one start-up is premised on paying professional journalists to cover their communities with good reporting. It is all about user-generated content that is unedited, often anonymous, and unaccountable. This is akin to the RE discounter’s model of having the listing agent show a property to a client whom the discounter is ostensibly supposed to be representing. All of you that are rooting for your newspaper’s demise, but hate the rise of RE discounters are essentially looking for a way to cut your marketing costs by supporting media that doesn’t have any content costs (by not paying writers), and essentially using the power of the web to reduce your marketing costs and increasing your margins. And you don’t want your newly increased margins in the future, once you “disintermediate” the journalist and the local newspaper with web2.0 marketing, to be undercut by the web2.0 discounter trying to “disintermediate” you. Your position towards newspapers is the equivalent of Redfin’s towards you. All of you in the RE.net strike me as extremely smart and intelligent (Gregg Swann, Dustin Luther, Brian Brady, all of you). But the RE.net position is disheartening. Community newspapers have been investing in content for decades; they operate profitably even today in bringing neighborhoods from Queen Anne to Atherton to Malibu with original content, and does so even with paper costs, content costs, and distribution costs. It’s not going anywhere just like network television didn’t go anywhere. On a previous post, someone suggested that no one has figured out “hyper-local” yet. There are over 6,000 community newspapers in this country. Each one paying full-time writers to cover communities in a dedicated fashion, communities such as Mercer Island, Queen Anne, Winnetka, Buckhead, Poway. They have been profitable for decades and still are today (almost every community paper in America is profitable – it’s shocking to non-industry people, but true). Saying no one has done hyper-local yet is like saying no one has figured out real estate transactions yet. Are you kidding? What you mean is that no company in the Web 2.0, geekutopia, SEO, Blogosphere universe with venture-funded operating losses has figured it out yet. Isn’t that crazy, even companies with no paper costs, no gas/distribution/mailing costs, no manufacturing/printing costs, no content costs is able to do profitably what the little old paper in Ballard does profitably.
The ultimate irony is that we are positioning to do a hyper-local online start-up, but I love newspapers too much to not defend what I think is a noble business. Your thoughts.
January 15, 2008 — 10:44 am
Jayson says:
This sounds like a great addition to their services. It’s good to hear that newspapers are starting to recognize the value of an Internet presence and are creating services to accommodate the needs of real estate professionals.
January 15, 2008 — 11:18 am
Brian Brady says:
“Can the disintermediation of other components of the real estate industry – especially those which are primarily informational – be far behind?”
Good question, Robert. What are your thoughts?
January 15, 2008 — 1:42 pm
Robert Kerr says:
Good question, Robert. What are your thoughts?
I think all signs indicate that online transactions are the unavoidable future.
Information services are moving now, financial will follow, and, finally, the transactional services (purchase and sale) will move.
I know buying a house online seems absurd today (even to me), but consider this: there was a time, not long ago, when people would never think of buying major appliances or expensive electronics online.
That’s no longer true.
Then cars. That taboo has also passed.
Real estate is a much larger purchase, an order of magnitude larger than even a luxury auto, but, with the proper insurance and safeguards, there’s no reason why people won’t be shopping, financing and even buying, all online.
What’s the time line for all of this? 10 years? 20 years? I don’t know.
Your thoughts … ?
January 15, 2008 — 11:27 pm
P in CO says:
Fishwrap will be the w00t of 2008.
January 15, 2008 — 11:48 pm
Laurie Manny says:
Domain Name: FISHWRAP.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net
Name Server: CUSTOMER2.BUYDOMAINS.COM
Name Server: CUSTOMER.BUYDOMAINS.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 01-jan-2008
Creation Date: 08-jan-2004
Expiration Date: 08-jan-2009
January 16, 2008 — 1:35 am
Greg Tracy says:
Newspapers are desperately searching for new ways to increase profit and this scenario seem very realistic.
So what do we do about it? Continue to syndicate our listings to everyone else or enhance our own online presence so we become the destination, instead of the third party sites?
January 20, 2008 — 1:22 pm
Jason says:
This is a very interesting post, as I hadn’t even heard of Fishwrap until just now. I have to look into this, because it looks like an extremely effective way to advertise listings.
May 22, 2008 — 10:29 am
Jake says:
This is a great way to market yourself and your properties as a realtor.
Can anyone here vouch for the effectiveness of using a service like Fishwrap?
June 23, 2008 — 5:54 pm