E-Mail Makes Hunting for a House Picture-Perfect

When Michael Elia was shopping for a new home, he typically received an e-mail each morning from his real estate agent, Seth Phillips, that included pictures of homes to review.

“I would look through them and see if there was anything I liked,” Elia said. “He could send me 25 new listings at a time.”

The pictures of homes on his computer screen were of better quality than those on a regular real estate listing sheet.

“It helps you eliminate the ones you don’t like visually,” Elia said.

In e-mails exchanged throughout the morning, Elia and Phillips would narrow down which houses they wanted to see that afternoon. Elia started searching in October and closed the sale on a Sherman Oaks home on Dec. 8.

“The Internet saved us a lot of time,” said Elia, a video and music producer. “It was no different than he and I getting together.”

Phillips said he integrated the Internet into his sales strategy about four years ago. Today he communicates with about one-third of his clients using the Internet and administers the overall technology program for the RE/MAX on the Boulevard brokerage in Studio City.

Although all the agents can use RE/MAX computers at the office to communicate by e-mail, Phillips said he is surprised that more have not invested in their own computer systems to maximize their ability to communicate with clients.

“There are a lot more people looking for property on the Internet than there are real estate agents who have taken the lead in this field,” Phillips said.

Last year, Phillips launched two Web sites, one for himself dubbed https://www.SethPhillips.com, and another for RE/MAX, https://www.los-angeles-real-estate-information.com.

“The Web site works 24-seven,” Phillips said.

He includes the SethPhillips.com address on newspaper advertisements with his listings and typically gets the most hits on Sundays and Mondays.

Phillips hired Lightning Agent Web Sites to create the site for him for $600. He pays the company a $250 annual fee to run the site. Phillips updates the site on a weekly basis.

The RE/MAX site serves a different purpose, helping Phillips and other agents draw in new customer traffic.

The operator of that site promised Phillips that it would frequently turn up in the top 10 whenever an Internet user runs such keywords as “Studio City Real Estate” through a search engine like GoTo.com or AltaVista.com.

“They send me a list that proves to me they are getting the site into the top 10 on five different search engines,” Phillips said. “If you don’t get a top 10 placement on search engines, you don’t have to pay.”

Even though Phillips and Elia used the Internet to keep in touch while closing their deal, they did not use their computers to send sale documents back and forth.

Phillips said he hopes that California lawmakers eventually approve legislation to allow clients to use an Internet signature to sign off on important documents. Elia said he would be willing to do an entire real estate deal online.

In the end, Phillips said, Internet-savvy real estate customers can save a lot of time, both in terms of their search and in communicating with their agent. He has found that customers are either very Internet intensive or do not communicate with him through computers at all.

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In time, he expects more Web sites will be able to offer video tours of homes, especially when more people have access to broad-band technology. Then an Internet listing would be able to provide a more comprehensive look at a property instead of just presenting photos.

Already there are companies that will create a “virtual tour” of a home by taking pictures of every angle inside every room. It costs about $100 a home, but Phillips doesn’t use this strategy.

“The properties are going so fast right now that it doesn’t make sense to do it,” Phillips said.

He said he is constantly telling other real estate agents to start learning more about computers and the Internet.

“You are going to have to learn it now or later,” Phillips said. “But if you learn it later, you’re going to be playing catch-up.”