YORBA LINDA — "I want this one!" says 3-year-old Evan Donnelly, pointing to the color photograph of a tile-roofed house scrolling up on his parents' computer screen.
"No, this house is too small--I can tell," said Mary Donnelly, sitting with her son in their Yorba Linda bedroom and turning toward her husband, Brian. "Go to the next one," she said.
With a click of the mouse, the computer brings up another house matching the Donnellys' list of preferences. The routine is a familiar one for the family, which spends its evenings shopping for their dream home--without ever leaving Yorba Linda.
Not keen on spending their weekends driving aimlessly through unfamiliar neighborhoods, the Donnellys use time after work "visiting" properties via computer, weeding out obviously unsuitable houses. Using a CD-ROM program developed by a company in Brea, the couple say they have found a high-tech way to eliminate some of the tedium, frustration and stress from home buying.
"With two children, looking for a home can be an exhausting process," Mary Donnelly said. "This makes it easy." The Donnellys aren't alone in turning to computers for help in home shopping.
When more than 17,000 real estate brokers gathered in Anaheim in November for their annual national conference, the group focused on how to give clients more electronically packaged information. Computers anchored almost every booth as attendees gathered to buzz about the latest high-tech marketing tools.
The reason: Most agents have come to realize that colorful yard signs, open houses and a smiling realtor are no longer the best way to sell a home. Now using sophisticated data sources to compete, realtors from the San Fernando Valley to Fountain Valley are among the first in the nation to use on-line systems. And as major real estate companies rush to travel the so-called information superhighway, yesterday's real estate broker could be left rolling behind like a fallen hubcap.
Realtors are betting that, like the Donnellys, their clients will demand more and better information before they begin shopping for a home. Though some brokers are nervous about giving up some control, most predict that shoppers will one day work only with brokers who provide the most complete and current information.
