The newest report from Borrell Associates reveals changes in marketing strategies of the traditionally staid real estate industry. While home sales have slowed, advertising of home and apartment sales has remained at a solid $11.6 billion-- much of this spent on classified ads and little allocated to online marketing. 

The report finds that many agents (nearly 61 percent) do not maintain websites or advertise their listings online. But the 2006 update also indicates that a new generation of agents (attracted to the industry by the once red-hot market) will reign in changes in the way homebuyers learn about, and eventually purchase properties. A recent survey of 535 agents throws light on the situation: 64 percent of less tenured agents likely used online advertising, while only 36 percent of those who had been selling homes for ten years or more did. 

Yet a majority of agents continue the bulk of their advertising in the (notoriously ineffective) classifieds, often for the sake of the client and not the listing. Agents have always known that brokers and yard signs are what attract homebuyers and sell houses, but with the rise and potential of internet marketing, big Sunday classifieds will appear even more passé. 

The report presages a rise in internet marketing over the next few years-- to $2 billion this year and $3 billion by 2010. The report also considers new online listing services that do away with paid listings, sites like Trulia, Zillow, edgeio, Oodle and CityCribs. 

With the predicted rise in online spending by 2010 and the emergence of alternative listing services, print advertising will no longer dominate real estate marketing. The industry, like so many, will yield to the potentials of internet marketing and advertising.