I have only printed 3 ads for listings in my real estate career....that's 7 years now.  I only did the first one because I was new and my Broker pressured me to get my name out there....the others were from pressure from sellers early in my career.  In retrospect, a complete waste of time and more importantly, money!

Here's the way I explain it to my sellers.."I will stage your home appropriately to maximize its attributes and minimize its flawas.  I will market your property through the use of dynamic virtual tours and professional photos of your home.  I will have any and all agents in my office advertise the property in various publications - newspaper, magazines, etc to maximize exposure but I will NOT spend a penny of your money into print advertising.  It has absolutely the lowest return on investment and serves little or no purpose in marketing your home...Do you really want me to spend your hard-earned dollars so that I can advertise myself?" 

I work on referral and from solid lead generation through the internet.  I not only feel it's bad business for me to run print ads but I'm simply too logical to put my money where I won't get a steady return on my investment. 

Hmmm... interesting debate. I don't really do much print marketing but I'm wondering if I should. What I notice is that the "heavy hitters" do a lot of print advertising. I don't if they're big guns b/c they print advertise or they print advertise b/c they're big agents. What came first, the chicken or the egg?  :)