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Internet Usage Expands the Homes’ Market
According to current National Association of Realtors® (NAR) statistics, there are just shy of 900 MLS databases active throughout the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. These databases provide a wealth of housing information to the consumer public. Today, a whopping 30+ million of you are using this amazing gateway as a vital self-help tool when looking to buy or sell a home in today’s real estate market, and that number grows each month.

These statistics are impossible to ignore. In fact, consumer trends of home buyers and sellers using the Internet has grown significantly and constantly since 1995. Back then, NAR reported only 2% of consumers using the Internet in the home buying or selling process. Numbers for 2003 ranged as high as 71%, and are still climbing. Buyers find their home search empowered through web sites like SterlingResidential.Com, HAR.Com, and Realtor.Com. NAR reports that almost every home available in today’s market can be found on the Internet, and by far the largest numbers are on Realtor® supported web sites powered by the MLS.

Realtors® Are More Important Than Ever
Curiously to some, Internet shoppers are more likely to hire real estate agents than those who do not. The reason is simple. As buyers become more informed about home buying process, they value the professional input of Realtors® who add needed resources, knowledge, and experience to the process. Informed consumers are able to recognize that the training and skills of a professional Realtor® ensures that their hard work and research will culminate in ownership of a well-chosen home. Buyers with a higher level of market information show significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their Realtor® and the home-buying experience.

Cutting-edge Realtors® have embraced Internet buyers, recognizing the benefit of teaming up with a consumer who understands what a professional brings to the process. Internet Buyers are more likely to perform their own property searches, selecting possible homes and reducing the time needed to find the right one. The Realtor® can then spotlight those parts of the transaction where their skills are most needed. It’s a team dynamic that adds efficiency to the process —- and everyone wins.

A New Generation Of Home Buyers
Realty Times reported, a 2002 study by the California Association of Realtors® found that Internet buyers are younger and wealthier than traditional buyers, and that they purchase higher-priced homes as a result of their research. A growing number of these buyers are young, single, first-time purchasers, borrowing more money, and making smaller down payments. Young women, who have come of age during the growth of the World Wide Web, are especially at ease in searching for their family home using the Internet.

Internet Buyers also differ from their traditional counterparts by spending significantly less time looking at available homes for sale before making a purchase. Far from rushing their decisions, however, buyers who begin their search on the Internet report that they are more in control of the home buying process doing a lot of the research themselves. For buyers, the the privacy and convenience of online searches, or the speed and quality of the search results, cannot be matched by traditional realty methods. Savvy Realtors® are excited about the direction these trends are taking the industry.

Information Growth and Developing Trends
Buyers use the Internet to gather information about mortgages, communities, neighborhoods, schools, homes and more. Internet Buyers want to see virtual tours and digital photos of potential homes on the internet and want to be able to communicate with their Realtor® by email. In today’s market, Buyer expectations determine the priority given to features and information included in online listings, and new sources of useful buyer information are always in development.

One of the newest innovations is the use of interactive aerial maps on a searchable database, allowing buyers and sellers to pinpoint specific regions, whether rural or urban, and pull up MLS listings in that area. Information on individual listings, community names, parks, and schools is just a sample of the information available on the searchable database of Redfin.Com. You can expect such innovation to spread to more states in the coming months.

Hidden Transaction Costs & Privacy Risks
Crowding an already saturated Internet marketplace are a variety of online middlemen offering to partner potential homebuyers to local real estate agents, lenders, bankers, contractors, or others. Working with a popular Internet brand may add some reassurance to the buyer, but it’s important to know that often times these middlemen are providing your information to one or more ‘certified’ businesses in return for a fee.

Often these services are promising something free in exchange for your personal or business information —- but nothing comes for free. Consumers should carefully read the service and privacy policies of online middlemen to determine if any hidden costs or privacy risks are involved and to determine who gets your personal information. It’s important to know whether your information is being sold to one or more local businesses in return for the free information you requested.

Digital Information Cannot Replace the Eyes, Ears, and Nose of the Home Buyer
The Internet provides many benefits to home buyers and sellers, allowing them to view property information and transact deals by email and fax. However, homebuyers shouldn’t rely on digital photos and virtual tours to select and inspect their new home. As more homebuyers search online listings for their next home, some are purchasing that home sight unseen. If a property visit is not possible, having your agent take digital images or video would be recommended. Nonetheless, relying only on digital photography, virtual tours, or video images is risky, and nothing can replace a personal property inspection.

Digital photos and virtual tours are selected to enhance the marketability of the home and are not used to highlight property conditions. Most MLS systems limit the number of photos, so getting a view of the houses next door, the street, or the neighborhood is unlikely. Photos and tours cannot convey accurate colors and proportions because lighting conditions are not always optimal when the images are captured. While digital imaging is a very useful tool for the initial home search, it can never replace the eyes, ears, and nose of the buyer. Each home’s condition and location are unique and buyers are smart to insist on a personal visit to get to know the home and neighborhood before closing the deal.

Customers Are In The Driver’s Seat
The most phenomenal change in the real estate market today is the driving force behind it —- the real estate customer. By 2003, NAR’s official web site, Realtor.Com, stood testament to the strong home sales activity taking place. Hopeful home buyers logged in excess of 2.5 billion minutes researching consumer information and available homes on its searchable database. With that much traffic, it’s where the sellers are, too.

Today’s computer-savvy customer has gained power through information. That information focuses the customers’ demands —- leads to increased choice —- and results in a powerfully sophisticated and confident client. This transformation of the market place has been years in the making, bringing positive change to the home buying and selling process.