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Housing: Internet plays large role in residential real estate
Sunday, March 25, 2001 By Joyce Gannon, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
When H.J. Heinz Co. tapped Prudential Preferred Realty to handle the relocation of 100 employees in its Star-Kist unit from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh last year, Prudential got a quick lesson in how real estate will be bought and sold in the not-too-distant future.
Heinz employees from the Cincinnati area wanted information on the local housing market sent to them via e-mail, the Internet and faxes and wanted to check out homes online if possible, said Ron Croushore, chief executive of Prudential Preferred's Pittsburgh operations.
"That was really a big sign to us of the wave of the future," he said. "We realized that clients and customers want us to communicate with them now, or in two minutes, not tomorrow."
The National Association of Realtors reported last year that 37 percent of buyers used the Internet as a source for finding a home and experts expect that number to grow quickly as both sellers and buyers realize how much detailed information about homes is available to them online.
"In terms of a marketing tool, it's incredible," said Helen Hanna Casey, president of Howard Hanna Co., the largest independent brokerage in the region.
For the month of January, Hanna recorded 3.1 million hits, or visits, to its Web site, www.howardhanna.com Hanna's Web address gets a more prominent listing in the Verizon White Pages than the phone number for Hanna's O'Hara headquarters.
Click onto Hanna's or any other brokerage's Web site and you'll find color photos of properties on the market, details such as the number of bedrooms and baths, and the asking price.
Most sites also provide "virtual tours" where viewers can access photos of several rooms and perhaps several exterior views of the property. You can search by neighborhood and price range to narrow selections quickly.
Croushore expects that, eventually, buyers and sellers will make offers, negotiate prices and sign sales and contracts online. Prudential, which does business on the Internet at www.prudentialpreferred.com , has sold 65 homes online since January through its "ehomebuy" feature that offers virtual property tours, maps and details on school districts and neighborhoods.
North Hills-based Northwood Realty Co./Better Homes and Gardens also is testing an online bid feature, eHomeSales, that lets buyers and sellers track all offers made for Northwood listings. It's available at www.northwood.com
Wendy West, executive vice president of Northwood, said buyers were coming to the market "more informed" than ever about prices and how much house they can get for the amount they have budgeted to spend.
By the time they get in touch with an agent, many prospective buyers "have been on the Internet to see what $100,000 is going to buy them. They have a little bit of feel for the market."
Coldwell Banker Real Estate wired all its local offices for high-speed Internet access last month and launched a computer training center in the North Hills where agents are trained on laptops to better market their listings and handle transactions online.
George Hackett, president of Coldwell's Pittsburgh operations and president of the West Penn Multi-List, which tracks sales and listings in Western Pennsylvania, predicted the Multi-List would be available on the Internet sometime this year.
In an effort to capitalize on the speed of technology, Coldwell recently launched HomeFacts -- a marketing promotion in which a telephone number is posted with each Coldwell listing in newspaper and Internet ads. If you're interested in a particular house, you call the number to contact an agent immediately for more detailed information.
Coldwell's listings are posted at www.pittsburghmoves.com All this technology may not help home sales much, however, if the economy goes south.
But since real estate brokers are optimists, none wanted to predict that 2001 might be a bad year for sales.
"There's a lot of unrest with the general public, and consumer confidence is going down," Hackett conceded. "But the saving grace is that [mortgage] interest rates are also going down. They've been below 7 percent."
Despite an economic slowdown and a decline in consumer confidence, home sales are holding their own nationwide.
The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes rose 3.8 percent in January from December. In the six-county Pittsburgh region, results have been mixed for the year to date. In January sales jumped by 4.7 percent over January 2000, but in February sales slipped by 1.7 percent from a year ago.
Northwood's West expects lower interest rates to help sales grow by about 3 percent for the entire year.
One downside in the local market is a shortage of new listings. But that's been a boon for sellers.
"Homes sell quickly and for a good price," said West.
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