Is home ownership still the American dream?

A post by friend, Tom Royce, of the Real Estate Bloggers about the real estate cheerleaders got me to thinking about  why people buy houses.

While the residential real estate market was tanking in 2006-2008, the National Association of REALTORS® was telling us, “It’s a great time to buy”.  What is a great time to buy, and why do people buy homes rather than renting?

The NAR, in its annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (2009) reports these reasons for buying a home:

Those all seem like pretty reasonable responses, with a wide distribution of answers, but why not play to the emotions?  Isn’t that what a good sales person does?

In 2007 when the market was in doldrums,the NAR was not only selling “It’s a great time to buy,” but working in “When you have a family it’s always a good time to buy.”

What better emotional hook than family?  Well, family, friendship, and community, of course.  Here is NAR’s most recent TV advertisement.  It’s called What Matters Most:

Wow, you almost expect to see the Beaver, Wally and Ward tossing the football around;  those are the values that NAR seems to be trying to get across.  I know lots of folks have lives like those depicted in the ad, but does it have appeal in a world where  things aren’t quite as stable, secure, or friendly as they were in the 1950s?   I could get into the impact  the economy, the internet and the social media revolution have had on on the very definition of families, friends and communities, but I will leave that to NAR too.  They’ve got you covered on those issues with the next phase of TV advertising.

All that to get to what we REALTORS® are paying our NAR dues for – to differentiate the million or so of us members from those who aren’t members of our organization.  As a member, I would like to see NAR’s public awareness campaigns explain the nuts and bolts of how members are best prepared to help the consumer, other than a hug and handing over the keys.  Oh, and thanks much to NAR form continuing to point out that all markets are local.

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Tagged as: Advertising, family, friends, National Association of REALTORS, Tom Royce