May 2000
No place like home pages
Why online house hunting can save you time--and aggravation.
By Jean Sherman Chatzky

What I remember most about my nine-month search for a house are the "ughs," those moments when your broker pulls up before places that are so truly awful--places with large decorative fountains, lavender shutters, or jarring contemporary features when you've specified colonial--that you refuse to get out of the car. Chances are, if you're a homeowner, you've been there.

But Bill Perkins hasn't. The New York City attorney, who began house hunting in mid-1998, knew precisely what he wanted: three bedrooms on the water, in the small town of Harpswell, Maine. But instead of traipsing to see every home that came on the market, he used the Internet to check them out first. Perkins plugged his criteria into the search engine at maine-realestate.com. Then every few days, he looked over any new listings that met his specifications, tossing out those that weren't to his taste.

Did it save him a ton of money? Nope. But in the end, it saved him a ton of time. And according to a study from the California Association of Realtors, that's typical. The study found that buyers who use the Net spend half as much time shopping for a home--2 1/2 months vs. a nonuser's five. The big challenge? There's a lot to weed through. According to Gomez Advisors, there are 15 sites that offer at least 20,000 listings, plus thousands of smaller ones. With so much to look at, you'll need a few tips to keep from feeling overwhelmed.

Search like crazy.

You'll want to canvass multiple sites, starting with realtor.com, the national site with the most listings. But don't forget state and local sites, and those of individual realtors. Smaller sites are often more up to date (noting which homes are under contract, for instance) and more complete, since local agents are sometimes fearful of losing control by posting their listings nationally.

Learn what story the pictures tell.

Until every listing has a virtual tour--and right now only about 3% actually do--it's important to understand what pictures mean. A series of interior shots often suggests the exterior is a mess, and vice versa. Bill Perkins learned early on not to trust listings that featured only snapshots of beautiful water views instead of pictures of the house itself.

Get comparables.

Besides property listings, the Internet can give you a good feel for the local market. Websites like homepricecheck.com will enable you to look at prices on specific streets as well as those for individual houses. This should help you hone your bids.

The fact that you're doing so much home-buying homework on the Web is also making your real estate agent's job easier. Shouldn't you be compensated for that? Gomez analyst Nick Karris predicts that the Internet will eventually reduce standard agent sales commissions from 6% to 5% or lower in the next five years. To get those kinds of savings now, though, you may want to go with a cyberbroker like Ziprealty, which offers commission rebates of $2,000 on homes between $100,000 and $249,999, and $5,000 on homes between $250,000 and $499,999. The trade-off: You never actually meet your agent, which means you won't be tapping a local broker's expertise.

But you won't have to endure an afternoon full of "ughs," either.