Real estate agents can be an opinionated bunch, so it should come as no surprise that many had strong reactions to NAR’s new millennial-focused online ad campaign.
Inman published a poll on Tuesday to gauge reader sentiment to the ads, which feature prospective homebuyers and renters who are so enamored with features of a home that a Realtor is showing them, they engage in odd behaviors. Meanwhile, the Realtor in each ad looks calmly on.
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 1,100 votes, 41 percent of respondents said they hated the ads, and 15 percent felt ambivalent toward them. On the flip side, 27 percent of our readers loved the ads, and 16 percent liked them.
Inman NAR ad poll
Some worried the four 30-second shorts, directed by the Perlorian Brothers, would make Realtors look haughty or arrogant and thereby discourage people from seeking professional services when buying a new home.
“Our value proposition is expertise,” Kimberly J. Miller, a broker at Twin Cities Real Estate, wrote to Inman in an email.
“We know more and therefore can help and protect them more than any online service,” she added. “Otherwise, we would already be out of business. I don’t know anyone who wants to be treated like an idiot when they are spending more money than they will spend on anything else in their lives.”
A NAR spokesperson declined Inman’s request to comment on the real estate community’s response to the ads. NAR previously told Inman they would be running online as part of a limited campaign targeting millennials.
Other real estate professionals saw the humor in the ads. Dale Chumbley, a Realtor at Washington’s Real Estate Group and president-elect at Washington Realtors, said in defense of the ads, that they were simply an exaggerated way to portray homebuyers’ unique preferences when looking for a new house.
“I may not have had clients quite this crazy, but [sometimes] we do get some very unusual requests/needs/wants,” Chumbley wrote in a Facebook comment on the original article. “They are trying to highlight those and show our understanding of the consumer, no matter how crazy.”
“It’s using hyperbole to make a point,” Keith Davis of Nest Realty Group, wrote in one of the most “liked” comments on our original article.
“Instead the ads address a very real situation: buyers fall in love with homes for their own individual reason,” he continued.
