NAR Engages in Campaign to Increase Demand for National, Florida Home Loans

Hoping to change the housing market for the better, the National Association of Realtors is putting its advertising money where its mouth is.

In a full-page newspaper advertisement running in six of the nation’s leading newspapers beginning this week, the group is launching a national campaign to urge home buyers who have been waiting to buy the home of their dreams with a Florida home loan or mortgage from another state to act now.

NAR’s first-ever newspaper blitz features the headline, “It’s a great time to buy or sell a home.”

The advertisement points out that national and Florida mortgage interest rates have fallen seven months in a row and are near 40 year lows, inventories of existing homes are higher than they have been in decades and prices have stabilized. But the perfect conditions for buyers are likely to change as sales pick up, prices gain traction and conditions improve for sellers next year.

Realtors in areas such as the Orlando housing market are also offering incentives and great deals.

“Homeownership is a safe, secure way to build long term wealth. The national median price of homes bought 10 years ago has increased 88 percent. The number of U.S. households is expected to increase 15 percent during the next decade, creating a continued high demand for housing,” the ad reads.

It quotes former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan saying: “Most of the negatives in housing are probably behind us. The fourth quarter should be reasonably good, certainly better than the third quarter.”

NAR President Thomas M. Stevens of Vienna, Va., said the newspaper ads are the beginning of an NAR campaign to urge buyers and sellers to take advantage of the favorable Florida housing market conditions. Two new network television and radio ads directed at buyers and sellers will begin airing in second week of January. The new spots will be rotated into NAR’s $40 million network Public Awareness Campaign.

NAR’s 1.3 million members and state and local Realtor(R) associations are being encouraged to adopt the message in their own advertising and communications to consumers, Stevens said.

“The market is much better than you might hear or read. Consumers should take advantage of this perfect alignment of low rates and extraordinary inventory before market conditions change,” Stevens said.

Total housing inventory levels fell 2.4 percent at the end of September to 3.75 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 7.3-month supply at the current sales pace, according to NAR’s existing-home sales report. As long as this figure remains high, Florida mortgage loan buyers have leverage in all negotiations.