A Mouse in Your House Hunting Will Save Time

Home buyers who use the Internet spend half as much time on the purchase process as those who house hunt using traditional methods, according to a survey released last week by a real estate trade group.

Internet house-hunters spent a median time of 2 1/2 months between the time they decided to begin looking for a house and making a purchase offer, half the time it took traditional buyers, said the California Assn. of Realtors in its first survey of consumers’ use of the Internet during the home-buying process.

The survey, conducted by telephone in May and June, polled 300 buyers who said the Internet was an “important part” of their home purchase and 300 buyers who used traditional, non-Internet methods to search for homes, said Leslie Appleton-Young, the group’s chief economist.

Internet-using buyers also spent less time working with agents once they had selected one--a median of four weeks before making a purchase offer, compared with eight weeks for the traditional buyers.

And they visited fewer homes before buying as well: The median number of homes toured by Internet buyers was four, versus eight for traditional buyers.

The survey shows that the Internet--once labeled as an invention that would make realty agents obsolete--has become a useful tool for both Realtor and home buyer, Appleton-Young said.

Use of the Internet “is a ‘win’ for real estate professionals because it dramatically increases their productivity,” said Appleton-Young.

And the technology allows home buyers to save time and gain control of the process by viewing listed homes, applying for mortgages and performing other home-buying tasks online, she said.

“The future of California real estate is . . . people who are capable of getting a lot of information on their own,” Appleton-Young said.

Association officials said that of the “Internet buyers” surveyed, about 75% resided in the Silicon Valley, with the remainder living in metropolitan Southern California. Researchers studied those areas rather than a random statewide sample, Appleton-Young said, because Realtors were most interested in learning how people already familiar with the Internet are using it in the home-buying process.

Real estate professionals who use the Internet extensively said the information gleaned from the survey generally reflects their experience.

Coldwell Banker agent Marc Fiedler, who with his wife, Barbara, sells property in the Beverly Hills and Cheviot Hills areas, said buyers who have visited the couple’s Web site may purchase more quickly than traditional buyers because they are already familiar with the for-sale inventory.

Also, Fiedler said, Internet users know how limited the inventory has been in the active Southern California market. “If they’re going to be competitive, they know they have to be quick,” he said.

Fiedler, who has had his Web site for three years, said although he hasn’t kept track of the numbers, more and more buyers are using the Internet to get information about mortgage rates and the title and escrow processes, in addition to looking at listings.

New York’s Corcoran Group, the second-largest brokerage in Manhattan and an early user of the Internet as a marketing tool, has found that buyers using the company’s Web site visit about 10 apartments and buy within a month.

Corcoran buyers relying on newspaper advertisements visit 30 to 50 apartments and buy within six months, said Tresa Hall, the company’s managing director.

Many buyers who do research on the Web save their agents lots of time too.

Encino-area broker Tony Truisi, also of Coldwell Banker, said one of his clients viewed 68 properties on the Web, narrowed her list to five based on the online information and photos, eliminated two after driving by and finally asked Truisi to show her three homes, one of which she has made an offer on.

He also said he has gotten two listings in the past three months from sellers who found out about him through the Internet.

Truisi said home sellers are actively using the Internet to view information about the prices of homes comparable to theirs. “A year ago, nobody was doing that,” he said.

The survey found that home buyers’ most common reasons for using the Internet were to find a real estate firm (89%), find a specific Realtor (87%), preview homes (82%), learn about rights and obligations (77%) and identify specific homes they wished to visit (75%).

On average, Internet buyers visited eight Web sites to look at listings, six to find an agent and two to get mortgage information.

For listing information, buyers most frequently visited real estate company Web sites (97%), individual Realtor Web sites (89%), the California Living Network (https:ca.realtor.com, 84%), realtor.com (76%), Cyberhomes.com (71%) and HomeAdvisor.com (69%).

In addition, the Realtors’ survey found that compared to traditional California home buyers, Internet buyers were better educated, younger, more affluent, and more likely to be male and single. These trends are also found when comparing Internet-users to non-Internet users in general, survey officials said.

Respondents’ names were obtained from a list of recent home buyers who were targeted in specific area codes in the Silicon Valley and Southern California to find those who had used the Internet in their search.