Home Buyers Can Start Their Search on the Net

You can find cars, jobs and presumably even love and marriage on the Internet, judging from the slew of romance chat rooms available. So why not comparable prices for properties that are similar to the house you’d like to buy or sell?

They’re called “comps” in real estate jargon--the recent selling prices of properties that are similar in size, age, location and condition to what you want to sell or buy.

In the past, you either had to spend a day at the county recorder’s office looking up recent sales yourself or you asked a Realtor to look them up. Now, a month-old cooperative venture of Stewart Title Co. in Irvine and La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Services allows you to collect comparable prices via your computer.

The service so far covers 400 counties in 21 states--including 43 of California’s 58 counties--and provides users a list of up to 30 comps within a one-mile radius of the property in which they are interested. The $47.50 fee is collected through an online credit card transaction.

The Web site information includes sales prices and, when available, square footage, lot size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, taxes and special amenities such as swimming pools, spas and room additions. But operators of the system say they plan to add information about schools as well as area demographics and maps to give shoppers more detail about the neighborhoods.

The site’s address on the World Wide Web is https://www.recomps.com. It also can be accessed through the Orange County-based Homeseekers web site, https://www.homeseekers.com. The online multiple listing service was started a year ago by various Orange County realty associations.

John O’Dell can be reached at (714) 966-5831 and at john.odell@latimes.com