Real Estate Technology Tips

Learn about important real estate technology tips to make your home selling and buying much easier. The tools available from a home computer and a cell phone put the power in your hands.

Forrest Luff doesn't have to be at his office to look up real estate listings, send and receive e-mails or work up a sales contract. A "smart" cell phone, a wireless connection and a portable printer are all the real estate agent needs to help clients buy and sell homes no matter where he is.

Luff, an associate broker with RealEstate.com's Denver office, plays clients listing videos on his cell phone, downloads minutes-old information about new listings while clients are in the car with him and puts Multiple Listing Service statistics in graphic format to show things like sales trends.

The possibilities of technology are nearly endless: Contract negotiations can take place entirely through text-messaging or e-mail. Luff can e-mail potential out-of-town buyers a ton of information before they ever set foot in Denver.

But both buyers and sellers can use technology to educate themselves before they even contact a real estate professional, he says.

"The buyer today has an incredible edge because of information technology," Luff says. He estimates that at least 8 out of 10 home buyers, "regardless of previous experience, whether they are a first-time buyer or a seven-time buyer," start their search on the Internet.

Home buyers now can access much of the same information on home listings, neighborhoods, school districts and crime statistics that real estate agents have always been able to see, he says. Mapping technology makes it easy to see where a property is located relative to work, school and recreation, and even to zoom in from space using satellite imagery.

"Before they waste any gasoline, they can eliminate homes based on certain things they see that don't appeal to them, or select homes that do," he says. Savvy agents post photo tours of their properties, or even video tours with sound that take prospective buyers through the home, he says. All that helps home buyers begin to understand what type of home their budget can buy them in different areas of town.

Speaking of budgets, Luff notes that technology makes it easy for home buyers to become knowledgeable about borrowing money and even hook up with lenders. Many Web sites provide mortgage calculators that allow buyers to estimate their monthly payments.

"You don't have this fear of being intimidated by a banker, by a mortgage banker, by a lender of any stripe," Luff says. "You can go to a lender much better prepared."

Home sellers can use many of the same technology tools, Luff notes. A seller can use the Multiple Listing Service to learn what similar homes are listed for, to name just one detail that can be gleaned from this invaluable service. And most counties have online records showing a home's tax value and the sales prices of homes in a particular neighborhood.

Some commercial Web-based services quickly access a variety of public records to estimate a home's value, he says. The services aren't perfect-recent news reports have pointed out a few cases in which the values were way off-but it still can help a home seller educate himself or herself.