Revenue reports from Gannett and McClatchy suggest that the fourth quarter is going to be a nasty one for newspapers due to the decline in the real estate market. McClatchy, for one, experienced a 29.4% drop in real estate classifieds revenue over last year.
Borrell Associates predicts that online real estate advertising will outpace newspaper advertising in the next five years. “Unlike recruitment verticals and the automotive vertical, where we’ve seen the dramatic shift to the Internet over the years, the rising tide of home sales kept all sorts of advertising afloat,” said Peter Conti, Jr., SVP of Borrell Associates. Now, he added, “There are less homes being sold, but at the same time advertisers and real estate brokers are looking for the most effective use of their dollars. And everybody agrees that the most efficient means is online.”