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Shopping for a Home Online

Kojo Yeboah, a software engineer in San Jose, Calif., had been searching for a home for 11 months. "Every evening after work, I'd come home and read the real estate section," Yeboah says. He and his wife had placed bids on nine homes, but lost every one. Recalls Yeboah, "We were sort of desperate."

At last their luck changed last September, when Yeboah logged onto a site where homeowners market their own properties. There, Yeboah found a listing for a four-bedroom home in nearby San Carlos. He sent the owner an email, arranged a visit the following week and declared his interest on the spot. This time the Yeboahs' bid was accepted, and they figure they saved as much as $50,000 by buying direct instead of through a broker.

Yeboah isn't alone in harnessing the power of the Internet for his home search. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) estimates that 23% of potential home buyers now search for homes online. Besides generating leads, the Internet helps home buyers compare prices, research neighborhoods and even take virtual tours. And, of course, using the Internet can also help you avoid getting stuck with that 6% commission real estate brokers usually charge. Finally, once you've found your home, you can use the Internet to shop for mortgages, movers and even your furniture.

Here's what you need to know to get started.

Browsing the listings
If owning a home is the American dream, knowing what other people's homes look like — and how much they cost — is the prevailing American curiosity. Thanks to the Internet, you can peep into dozens of homes a day, and the owners will never even know you were there. Most of the home-listing sites work the same way. Prospective buyers screen by location, cost, house size and so on. Then you get a list of properties and contact information.

Realtor.com is by far the most extensive site. It claims to have 1.3 million current properties, which is about 90% of the properties on the U.S. market. The site, which is run by NAR, is updated daily. Not all listings provide photos, but they do have detailed features of each property (carpeting in the master bedroom, professional landscaping, vaulted ceilings and so on).

If it's a "virtual tour" you want, check out Homeseekers.com. Within specific listings, shoppers can click on a room they're interested in and watch a 360-degree scan of the entire space. Other sites that display homes, with varying degrees of sophistication, include Homes.com, RealEstate.com and CyberHomes.com. If you’re looking for something less expensive, TowerAuction.com is a directory of mostly low to midprice properties that have been foreclosed. And don't overlook brokers' own sites: Century 21 and Coldwell Banker both have their extensive listings online.

All of these sites can save you a lot of schlepping to homes that are inappropriate, especially if you're looking for a place out of town. Even if the specific listings don't satisfy your requirements, you can get the names of some of the area's most active agents. "Only a few people buy what they see originally," says Sandy Henslin, a Rochester, Minn.-based realtor, who points out that in really tight markets, homes don't always last long enough to be listed online. But at a minimum, Internet home shopping will give you a feel for the marketplace and the name of a broker that sells the type of home you prefer.

Will you like the neighbors?
Most sites offer more than just a pretty facade. If you locate an area that's appealing, you can also research the characteristics of the town. Most home-listing sites link to informative rankings of school systems and crime rates in the area. And, you can get a sense of the people who live there, too.

For instance, in a report on Microsoft's HomeAdvisor Web site about Chappaqua, the New York town now famous as the home of the First Family, 76% of the town's residents are described as "blue blood." Click for a description of blue blood, and you'll find that blue bloods are likely to travel first class on a foreign trip, shop at Saks, drive a Lexus and own a cappuccino maker. At least you'll know what to expect when the neighbors invite you over for coffee. (Not surprisingly, only 0.8% of U.S. households qualify as blue blood.)

Making a reasonable offer
Before placing a bid on your dream home, you'll want to make sure the price is realistic. After all, you don't want to overpay. But you don't want to lose the house either. Here's where the true power of the Internet is evident. With just a few clicks, consumers have access to information that just a few years ago would only have been available through a realtor or a trip to the county clerk's office.

At iOwn.com, which is primarily a mortgage-brokering service but also has home listings, select the option "Check Recent Sale Prices." By entering the town and state where you're planning to live, you can get a list of the prices of recent home sales in the vicinity. Maybe the Clinton's should have checked — according to iOwn.com, the most expensive home sold in Chappaqua in the past year went for $1.34 million, less than the cool $1.7 million the Clintons paid for their new pad. Other sites offering similar services include Yahoo! Real Estate and RealEstate.com.

Taking care of business
Finding a home is one thing, financing it is a different matter entirely. So, to avoid becoming disappointed, you should estimate what you can afford before you start shopping for your new home. You can even prequalify for a mortgage, which is something sellers like to see.

Start with SmartMoney worksheet "How Much House Can You Afford?" (see top right for link.) Once you're ready to shop for a mortgage, use SmartMoney’s Mortgage Calculator (see top right for link) to figure out what's the best for your situation.

Finally, VirtualRelocation.com and Homefair.com are two sites that can help you compare the cost of living in different cities, find movers and a new job in your new hometown. You might need it to pay off your new house