Videos Offer Buyer a Peek Into Houses, Neighborhood

Imagine buying a house without the endless hours of driving up and down one residential street after another.

Sounds impossible? Not in the San Fernando Valley.

Soon, house hunters in this suburban area of Los Angeles will be able check out houses, neighbors and surrounding communities without leaving a real estate agent’s office.

This month, the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors decided to join a growing number of real estate industry organizations nationwide to offer the Video Listing service, a home-listing service on laserfilm videodiscs. The service is expected to be in place by June.

“Laserfilm will significantly affect the way real estate is bought and sold. Selection of homes should be easier and faster for buyers,” said Steve Raynor, president of the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors.

The 8,100-member association is among the first in the nation to offer the service, Raynor said.

Thousands of Homes for Scrutiny

Real estate agents and prospective buyers can sort through thousands of homes, selecting favorites for personal inspection. Board members will be charged $150 a month to participate in the program. The equipment to show the discs will cost an additional $2,700 or can be rented for $70 monthly.

House sellers will be charged $42 to have photographs of their homes included on the videodiscs. Prospective buyers will not be charged.

The system works like this:

An agent asks a potential buyer a series of questions to determine the style of house desired and the ideal neighborhood and price. This information is entered into a computer, which sorts through about 8,000 homes listed in the multiple listing service.

Within seconds, a series of color photographs of homes meeting the criteria is available for viewing.

“It saves a lot of the initial running around you have to do,” said Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Assn. of Realtors, a Washington trade association.

Popular in Metropolitan Areas

Molony said video house hunting has become popular in a growing number of metropolitan areas. In Washington and New York, for example, cable television channels are devoted to the showing of properties for sale.

“Television is a little bit sexier,” Molony said. “It gives you a little bit of flavor before you spend the time to go out and look at the house.”

Still, real estate industry professionals stress the importance of personal visits to properties before making a decision to buy.

“Video can never replace actually going out to look at the house,” Molony said.

“The lion’s share of finding a house today still involves going to a multiple listing system and working with a computer to narrow down the list and then going out to look at the houses,” Molony said.

Raynor said the laserfilm system differs from the traditional multiple listing book in that it offers prospective buyers more information.

“The multiple listing book shows only the exterior, this system is capable of showing the exterior, the interior, the neighborhood,” he said. “It gives a more thorough view.”

For home sellers, the system helps to weed out buyers who may not be serious or ready to deal.

“They won’t have ‘lookie-loos’ going through their homes,” Raynor said. “It preserves their privacy to a great degree.”

The laserfilm system was developed by McDonnell Douglas Electronics Co., a division of aerospace giant McDonnell Douglas, located in St. Charles, Mo.

The discs are made of a photographic film and are capable of storing more than 32,000 photographs of homes and information on the communities surrounding the homes.