Internet usage by prospective home buyers on the rise
WYATT HAUPT
Staff Writer
With the percentage of consumers who use the Internet to search for a house climbing nearly as fast as the median price of a home in Southwest County, local real estate agents say they too are embracing the Web in an effort to keep up with the times.

Every major real estate firm in the area and a large number of agents have an Internet site, where potential clients can find information about cities, neighborhoods and schools, as well as view homes listed for sale. Some of the sites offer up virtual tours of dwellings that are designed to allow a prospective buyer to get an up-close and personal look at a house, without leaving their computer.

Many of the Web sites also feature multiple listings from other agents, something that was unheard of a few years ago because of the competitive nature of the business.
"It's like window shopping. It gets them in the door," said Marsha Swanson, immediate past president of the Southwest Riverside County Association of Realtors and an agent with Coldwell Banker Associates Realty. "But you don't get the feel of the house until you go see it and walk through each room."

That's why local agents say they no longer feel threatened by the Internet, even though its usage by prospective home buyers has risen dramatically in the last several years. A 2002 report issued by Borrell Associates Inc. a Virginia-based research firm, showed that the percentage of people who use the Internet to search for a home soared to 50 percent in 2001, compared with 2 percent in 1995.

That translates to about 2.5 million domestic home buys in 2001, compared with 91,000 in 1995, the report stated. Local real estate agents say that increase is largely attributed to their clients' growing comfort level with the Web and the fact that Internet service providers have bolstered the speed in which users can zip from site to site.
Consumers who use the Internet for home buying purposes are also more likely to have narrowed down the number of houses they end up viewing. A 2002 report from the California Association of Realtors showed traditional home buyers went to see an average of 15.2 homes in person, while Internet buyers saw about half as many homes (7.5).

"It's an incredible force," said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist of the California Association of Realtors. "I think we are going to see more and more of it as today's teenagers become tomorrow's first-time home buyers. I think it shortens the (search) process."
While there's no question that the Internet has contributed mightily to the real estate industry's ability to market homes, there's no guarantee that consumers will be able to buy the homes they spy on the Web, said Joe Boehringer, who owns ERA Jensen Realty in Temecula. Boehringer estimates that between 40 percent to 50 percent of his clients use the Internet to get information about homes, neighborhoods, cities and schools.

"But the clients get really upset because when they walk in (our) door, the house they thought was available no longer is and that causes problems. The newspaper ads they expect to be old, most people have had enough experience to know that ... they don't expect that to happen with the Internet ads."

Regardless, the Internet has changed the way real estate agents work.
"It's definitely a big part of the business, not just for buyers and sellers, but even in terms of how agents work," said Gene Wunderlich, president of the Southwest Riverside County Association of Realtors. "Technology is not going to replace the real estate agent, but the real estate agent with technology is going to replace the one without."