Print Media... Dead?

My Sunday afternoon was spent, as usual, searching online (Iowa Realty's website) to find the mass of open houses in the area and then visiting each one by one. Also, as usual, none of the houses sparked any interest with my husband and I. However, the realtors that we met did. One of the men showing a house in Valley Junction turned out to be very curious about how we were searching for houses in our hunt to find the perfect home before September. He confessed that he had been trying to convince his company to give up print advertising all together and use advertising strictly online. This definitely got me thinking.

Why do realty company's still advertise in print media? And is it really working well for those that do? I can't even remember the last time I opened a newspaper to search for a home, and my husband and I have been house hunting for a number of months. I also can't imagine the type of person who would look through a newspaper to find that type of advertising. The majority of the people who read the paper on a regular basis are older adults... a group of people who are not typically in the house buying stage of their lives.

Once again, I come to the conclusion that print media is slowly dying. The World Wide Web has just trumped over print, and there's no stopping it in this category. My advice? Get rid of the house ads in the Sunday paper and find a new place to present them on the internet, where you can post pictures, virtual tours and up-to-date information. The web just has this type of advertising in the bag. It's quicker, more efficient and much more informative.