There are three kinds of commonly recognised untruths:
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
- Mark Twain
Here's a direct quote from the Age Domain Property Section
"When looking for a property 84% of people use newspapers. 45% use newspapers only and 39% use newspapers and the internet equally. Only 2% use just the internet.
Make of that what you want. Quoting another source 98% of all properties for sale are advertised on the web and are responsible for 50% of all resulting sales.
Let's just do the quick test of listed properties for sale in Brighton & Brighton East
- realestate.com.au 200+
- The Age Domain 66
The statistics tell me there are at least three times more properties for sale on the net. The ratio is 3:1. And this is only for a single demographic - Brighton - upper income blue chip. I understand areas like the Mornington Penisula the ratio is actually much higher.
The quote from Mark Twain is accurate; statistics are often used to lie to the public because most people do not understand how statistics work. I am not saying the Age is making it up. They are quoting from research carried out by Quantum Research. But you sure do need to question things when statistics are quoted, especially the quotation of favourable numbers.
Agents, vendors and buyers dont lie - they know where the value and utility lies. All too often print advertising for many properties is just not part of the marketing mix.
And I think Murdoch deserves the last word when he forecast a gloomy future for newspapers with the growth of the internet, saying he doesn't know "anybody under the age of 30 who has ever looked at a classified ad".
The owner of the Herald Sun, Sun, Times, Sunday Times and the News of the World, who once described newspaper classified advertising revenue as providing "rivers of gold", now says: "Sometimes rivers dry up".
This is a generational change.
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