The Woodlands Real Estate Voice

I read a post from my friend and sharp Realtor Jay Thompson in Phoenix “Are Newspapers Dying?” that made me think.  Jay shared some interesting facts about his area’s leading paper, The Tribune regarding their cutting 40% of their staff and sharply cutting back on their distribution. Jay mentions that he stopped advertising in the newspaper for his real estate business long ago and ended his post with the question: “When is the last time you read a newspaper?”

I am kind of in the middle on this one.  I agree that advertising real estate in the paper is absurdly over-priced and ineffective; however, I love going out to get the paper in the morning and sitting on the porch to read through the daily happenings.  I used to be a big cable news convert but it has just become too loud as commentators shout over each to deliver another point before the next commercial break. 

So I returned to the newspaper. I like to start with the editorial page and read the reader letters, then I move to the local news and business news. Finally, I quickly scan the front page and remainder for anything real estate-related or unusual.  I guess this kind of backwards but I don’t read the paper for international news anymore. As crazy as it sounds, it seems dated to me.  In today’s Internet world, the “lag” between reporter typing the story, going to print, and going out to the delivery trucks makes the newspaper’s international news seem like yesterday’s news to me.

It is the local information that I am interested in.  I like to know what local people are doing and how others feel about it.  It makes me feel more connected to the community.  That’s why I believe that newspaper articles about local real estate issues are gobbled up by readers: they are useful, applicable, meaningful.

I believe this is the future of newspapers… hyper-local information about towns and neighborhoods. Newspapers will no longer compete with television and the Internet to report world or national news but instead fill the news gap for state, local and neighborhood level affairs.  What does this mean for the relationship between the news and real estate?  I think newspapers will be forced to change their advertising revenue model from low quantity/high cost to high quantity/low cost in order to stay competitive for advertising dollars.  Until then, they will continue a negative cycle of:

1. High cost of advertising = less companies advertising real estate in the newspaper
2. Less companies advertising real estate = the real estate section become less valuable to readers
3. Less value of the real estate section to the readers = less companies want to advertise real estate. 
4. less companies want to advertise real estate = downward pressure on ad pricing