Case Study - New Jersey Association of REALTORS®

Portfolio - New Jersey Association of REALTORS®

Overview

The New Jersey State Legislature was considering a measure to permit municipalities to impose a local tax on the sale of homes. Termed a realty transfer fee, this tax would be on top of a current state-imposed tax on the sale of homes.

If approved by Trenton and enacted locally, this local home sales tax would make homeownership more expensive and suppress the state's housing market.

Objective

New Jerseyans, especially homeowners and prospective home buyers, needed to be told that they would be hurt by a local home sales tax and encouraged to tell their local legislators to oppose creating a local home sales tax.

Tactics

New Jerseyans learned about the proposed local home sales tax through an aggressive earned media effort and radio, television, newspaper and online advertising campaign. All news releases and advertising directed people to the campaign's web-based local home sales tax calculator, which provided an estimate of the local home sales tax that homeowners would be forced to pay if the local home sales tax is approved and implemented in their town. Website visitors could also sign an online petition and instantly send a letter to legislators opposing a local home sales tax.

Results

The advertising campaign, buttressed by letters to the editor, op-ed articles and news coverage among local, regional and statewide newspapers, increased overall awareness of the proposed local home sales tax. Legislative support for the local home sale tax bill buckled from the public's awareness of the measure, stalling its momentum.