Did the Naperville Sun sell Rick Klau’s home?
According to all the data, trends and reports from every which way but loose – the print newspaper business is in trouble. Newspaper circulation and ad revenue are down.
Almost every Realtor I know has reduced their expenditures on print ads. Internet ad revenue is increasing and more and more real estate agents are putting more time, attention and money into online advertising. Well, that makes sense, over 80% of homebuyers begin their search for homes on the Internet.
Just before Christmas, I ran across this post by Rick Klau on the difficulty he was having selling his home in Naperville, IL. Since my son lives in Naperville, I just had to leave a comment.
Then I ran across this post from the Naperville Sun about Rick’s situation and the subprime woes still being felt in the housing market. So, I just had to fire off a comment to Rick about the Sun’s article – “Rick – saw the article in the Naperville Sun. You're a famous national figure now!”
To which replied – No clue if it helped, but we got 2 offers that night. Halelujah, we're selling the house! 
So I wonder, did the Naperville Sun article contribute to the sale of Rick’s house? If so, then it would make sense for Realtors to do all they can to get their listed property featured in some kind of news article. We have a couple of things in the works for the Chateau d’Ellen in Pleasanton and 200 Alicante Place in Danville.
For most of our listings we do use “news releases” the Internet equivalent of a press release. We are constantly evolving our Internet marketing efforts as more and more home buyers rely on it as their primary information source.
Congratulations Rick and Family, kick back and enjoy all of this California sunshine!
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[...] Coincidence? I don’t think so. Two offers came in that night, both from locals who were familiar with the neighborhood. Eight months on the market, and the two offers came in the same day we got a ton of attention in the local paper. John Harper, a Realtor out here in California, wondered whether newspapers sell houses and remarked that the trend is for Realtors to shift much of their marketing budget to online sources away from offline sources. One example doesn’t make a trend, but I think the results in my case speak for themselves: Craigslist, Zillow, Trulia, realtor.com – none of them produced our buyer. Interesting. [...]