The acquisition last month of a leading on-line lead generator for realty agents and brokers by a consortium of six leading media companies was hailed last week at an industry conference as a signal of a new era in cooperation between once bitter rivals for the billions that are spent every year on real estate advertising.

"Print and online have a role to play together," said Richard Sommer, chief executive officer of HomeGain of Emeryville, Calif., the privately-held Internet-based firm that was purchased by Classified Ventures, a joint venture owned by the Belo Corp., Gannet, Knight-Ridder, the McClatchy Co., Tribune Co. and the Washington Post.

"It's a signal that traditional companies are ready to play in this space," agreed Justin McCarthy, head of local sales at Google, the popular Internet search engine.

And it's about time print media has embraced the web, added Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist.com, a rapidly expanding community-service website where buyers and sellers get together to trade just about everything imaginable.

"It's great that newspapers are catching up," Newmark said. "In some of our markets, especially New York, more real estate agencies are using our site than are advertising in newspapers."

Sommer, McCarthy and Newmark made their remarks at Real Estate Connect, the annual conference that seeks to join the real estate industry with technology companies.

Established in 1999, HomeGain provides consumers with direct access to real estate professionals and visa versa. It also gives agents the products and tools to conduct their marketing online. The site claims 4 million visitors a month.

Classified Ventures is a strategic business enterprise between the six newspaper companies to collectively grow their revenues in the real estate and automotive categories. It has three main businesses, including Homescape, which delivers online solutions to more than 150 newspapers, Cars.com and Apartments.com.

The acquisition of HomeGain "adds a powerful marketing and business partner to help accelerate (our) growth and deliver more value and innovation to consumers, agents and brokers," said Daniel Jauernig, president of Classified Ventures.

At the conference, Google's McCarthy pointed out that this is not the first time newspapers have attempted to win back some of the classified advertising they have lost to splashy websites and on-line innovators. The "Career Builder" newspaper section of job ads is basically a print version of an Internet job posting site, he said.

But Harley Rouda Jr., chief executive officer at Real Living, the largest residential real estate brokerage in the Midwest with some 4,000 agents and 150 offices, questioned whether realty pros will ever again embrace newspapers as a key, stand-alone advertising venue.

When the Columbus, Ohio-based RealLiving, then known as HER Real Estate, dropped its Sunday newspaper ads, Rouda said he was "burned in effigy" by his agents. Now, though, he added. "they have finally given up the heroin addiction of newspaper advertising." And he wondered whether they will ever go back.

But Rouda said smart brokers and agents will advertise in both venues. "You have to have online and print; they compliment each other," he said.

Another speaker, Glenn Cohen, founder of Expert Realty, said the print media will always be an important ad venues, if not for classified ads, then at least for tombstone-type display ads that tout a firm's accomplishments.

"We spend a tremendous amount in newspapers," he said. "We're the new guy, we have to build a brand."

Published: August 3, 2005

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When Lew Sichelman first started writing about housing in 1969, he was the youngest real estate writer in the country. Now, 37 years later, he's one of the oldest -- and most decorated. He has been rated the top housing columnist in the country by the National Association of Realtors as well as by his peers in the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Indeed, NAREE has recognized his work on numerous occasions. One year - due to his advancing age, he can't recall which one - he earned top honors in the annual NAREE Journalism Contest in three out of the four major writing categories. It was the first time one writer has won so many NAREE awards in a single year. Known for his ability to make even the most difficult topics understandable, Sichelman also has been honored by the National Association of Home Builders and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He began providing in-depth coverage of and consumer-oriented information about housing and housing finance at the Washington Daily News, where he was real estate editor. He held that same position for nine more years at the Washington Star, which purchased the News in 1972. The Star, a so-called "writer's newspaper" which also had the misfortune of being an evening paper, was put out of its misery in 1981, and Sichelman, who had begun self-syndicating his column in 1978, decided to become a full-time columnist. Today, his column, "The Housing Scene," is distributed by United Media to newspapers throughout the country. He also is on the staff of National Mortgage News, an independent newspaper which is considered the bible of the mortgage business. And he writes for numerous other publications, including MarketWatch.com, where he answers readers questions once a week, Sports Illustrated (don't ask), RealtyTimes.com, BigBuilder and others. Sichelman is married, the father of five and grandfather of eleven.