Real estate radio advertising – the edge of deception?

Here in San Diego, and I believe California statewide, we’ve had a shortage of real estate inventory. For the last few years, in the areas that I work, any properly priced single-family detached home has been selling within the first two weeks of the listing date.

Obviously, taking a properly priced listing in this type of market pretty is as good as a guarantee of commission in the bank. My local AM radio station that I listen to, has pretty much consistently had two or three different local realtors advertising on an almost daily basis.

Now I realize that radio advertising is not inexpensive, but in the market like we’re in today I’m sure they’ve calculated out there return on investment to ensure that they are guaranteed a decent profit margin.

Having been in residential real estate for the past couple of decades I really don’t recall another period here in Southern California, that we had such a inventory shortage. I also don’t recall any other time that I’ve seen in print, or heard on the radio, real estate agents/brokers  promoting ads that I consider blatantly misleading. Okay, you may not agree with my interpretation of these ads, but I believe any person who has knowledge of the California residential real estate market would definitely consider these ads, in the very least, on the edge of deception!

Real estate radio advertising – the edge of deception!

I realize there’s a loophole in the industries determination of who takes credit for listings and sales when there is a team involved. I also think that this loophole should be changed because for the general majority of the public do not realize that the facts and statistics being presented are really not for one agent but for a large number of agents that comprise that agents team.

Well, before I get into the actual details I am going to say that I am slightly changing the numbers involved so as not to single out one agent or team. With that said, I heard a number of radio commercials where the announcer says that a particular agent has averaged over one homes sold every 48 hours!

I listened closely to the ad and I don’t recall hearing the word team used at all. But, it’s my opinion that even if the word team was used, ads like this are on their face, misleading.

Now, I don’t recall if it was the same ad or another similar ad that I heard on the radio, but that commercial not only stated how many homes this particular agent sold within that say 48 hours, but, then in my opinion, really compounded the misleading nature of this commercial by then stating something to the effect that the average real estate agent (I don’t recall them saying whether it was a San Diego real estate agent average or an average for California agents, or perhaps it was a nationwide average that was being referred to) only sold four or five homes per year! The radio commercial then stated that when compared to this super agents home sales, the super agent was doing 75 times more than the average agent!

If the first part of the commercial would have stopped at how many home sales this agent averaged last year that would’ve been still misleading because of the high number of sales it’s obvious to other real estate professionals that a team was involved. But now, comparing this super agents hourly production to the average agents yearly production, in my opinion and I believe in any sensible person’s opinion, is just outright misleading and I believe makes all Realtors look bad. Sure, the many naïve potential home sellers may be taken in by this type of advertising, and so give the superagent a good return on  their advertising investment.

Sure, if nothing else, this gets the superagent in the door to make an in-person presentation, where I’m sure he/she/it clarifies that there is a team of a couple dozen agents involved in this agents business. But, the damage to the public’s perception of the general residential real estate business has already been done.

I know we have a code of ethics and we also have a loophole concerning advertising team results. Rather than just complain about these ads I strongly suggest that NAR and CAR take a look at revising regulations to state something to the effect that if such comparisons in sales are used in advertising it is clearly stated how many agents are involved if there is a team that produced the sales.

It all boils down to the old saying that if you’re going to do a comparison, compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges!

Real estate radio advertising – the edge of deception?