Posted on: Friday, December 12, 2003

Real-estate agents find lucrative niche in marketing to gay, lesbian homebuyers

By Mary Umberger
Chicago Tribune

In 1990, Oak Park, Ill., real estate agent Donna Karpavicius decided to specialize in marketing to gay men and lesbians.

"I had virtually no competition," the Prudential agent recalls of her early career in Chicago. "Unfortunately — for me, anyway — there's a lot more now."

Is there ever.

Although other gay-related issues have made "breakthrough" headlines, particularly this summer, the real-estate business quietly has turned the once-taboo practice of marketing to gay consumers into a coveted specialty.

Certainly, real estate isn't alone in trying to latch onto the gay bandwagon as it rushes by with its mother lode of marketing potential. Ford Motor Co., Procter & Gamble Co., United Airlines and Starbucks Corp. are a few examples of businesses that have had same-sex-couple ad campaigns aimed at gays.

And then there's the media hoopla over gay-themed television shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

"A lot of the so-called gay lifestyle is being demystified," said Jim Schiefelbein, marketing director for realty firm Baird & Warner. "It's hot right now ... but it's something we've been doing here for years."

In real estate, though, the issue of gay rights is more akin to an age-old business practice: Follow the money.

"When real estate companies realized that the gay consumer had disposable income, that was when things started to change," said Adam Thompson, managing broker at Rainbow Realty Corp. in Elmhurst, Ill., which specializes in working with gay clients.

That disposable income appears to be considerable.

"The projected spending power of the gay and lesbian segment of the population, about 15 million people, for 2003 is $485 billion," said Stephanie Blackwood, a New York marketing executive. "That's compared to the Hispanic segment, which is $653 billion, but gays and lesbians are nearly a third the size of the Hispanic segment."

Many agents agree that money has broken down the walls.

"If I don't pick up the phone, there are a hundred agents who will," said Alan Zuber, a Baird & Warner agent.

"There are a lot of straight agents in my office, and almost all of them have worked with gay clients," Karpavicius said. "Whether any of them have any personal or moral reservations, I don't know. But when you get somebody coming in to pay $400,000 for a house, they get over it pretty quick."

Schiefelbein said Baird & Warner has strived to be inclusive with its work force and its consumers.

Two years ago Baird & Warner became one of the few realty firms to place companywide ads intended to appeal to gay men and lesbians. Most have been in gay-oriented publications, though recently ads have appeared in such general-circulation newspapers as the Tribune, he said.

"We were the first real-estate company to feature same-sex models in our advertising," he added.

Thompson agrees that real estate marketing has undergone a dramatic change. "I can tell you that 12 years ago you couldn't put the word 'gay' in print."

For the most part, the attitude change at realty firms comes from the agents, not the corporate parent, Blackwood said.

"On an industry level, the real estate industry is nowhere," said Blackwood, co-founder of Double Platinum, a New York marketing communications company specializing in the gay market.