VisualTour.com® Contact: J. L. Winn, TRF Systems, Inc.
JLWinn@VisualTour.com 954.345.9701 ext 220

March 5, 2001 - Home buying is as exciting as it is time consuming.

Each day, you check out the ads with but an overstated description or an abbreviation-riddled summary and maybe one exterior photo as a lead. So you hop in your vehicle and hunt down the house only to wonder if the person who wrote the description ever saw the place.

You look at the address to make sure it is correct, realize you've just wasted your time and head to the next property.

But for house hunters who own a computer, looking for a home may only be a mouse click away.

Virtual tours of properties are beginning to show up on the Web sites of area real estate companies and individual Realtors.

Instead of endless driving from one end of town to another, virtual tours allow you to view properties inside and out from your home computer, resulting in less time behind the wheel and more time walking through a house that truly interests you.

"People can see 15 to 20 homes through virtual tours in the amount of time that it takes to get in your vehicle and drive to one home," said Steve Jarrell, chief executive of Coral Springs, Fla.-based VisualTour.com®.

"Virtual tours may never take the place of actually going out to the house, but it weeds houses out. You look at the first four or five frames of a virtual tour and you can tell if you like it or not."

Before you run to your computer and start touring, you need to be aware that because the technology is only a couple of years old, few houses can be virtually toured.

Local real estate agents estimate that between 1 percent and 2 percent of area houses for sale can be viewed through a virtual tour. Jarrell estimated that nationally the number is less than 10 percent. But that number is expensed to rise, he said.

"My guess is that in two to three years that number will be 75 percent," Jarrell said. "It will be as common as a yard sign."

Most tours include the price and size of the house, a tour of the interior with descriptions of each room and view of the exterior as well as a panoramic view of the neighborhood.

Bill West, a Realtor with The Group Inc., recently sold a modern log house with seven acres in the mountains west of Fort Collins thanks to a virtual tour. A fellow Group agent heard about the property and his Fort Collins clients wanted to take a quick look at it.

So West e-mailed the virtual tour to the couple, who liked what they saw. After actually visiting the property, the couple bought it.

"I don't know if I've ever directly sold a property due to the virtual tour," said West, who launched virtual touring on his personal Web site in January. "But in this case, the virtual tour inspired the people before the pack got involved."

The tour begins with a panning of the seven-acre wooded property and the exterior of the house.

Next is a peek inside. The camera pans across a comfortable living room complete with a golden retriever lying by a moss rock fireplace. It shows a cozy nook and kitchen, then heads up to the master bedroom. There it moves across the bed to a computer desk, armoire and bathroom.

"I think this is going to benefit people checking things out in the middle of the night in their pajamas," said B.J. Johanningmeier, an agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage's Windsor office. "They can eliminate a house or get basic information done before they come see a home. Everybody likes to be an informed purchaser and this will help. In effect, people will pre-qualify themselves."

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage offers virtual tours of its model homes in Northern Colorado. Todd Moir, Coldwell's director of marketing, said that assists people looking at new subdivisions where houses have yet to be built.

"It's an especially useful tool for out-of-town or out-of-state buyers," Moir said. "We can turn around a virtual tour for people within a couple of days and e-mail it to them. That's a lot less than a plane ticket."

Along with few properties being virtual tour accessible, another potential problem may be with people's computers, Johanningmeier said.

"It takes some firepower in the computer to run the tours," he said. "It seems the people who are really looking into it are the HP people and others who work a lot on computers."

West predicted it wouldn't be long before buyers and sellers are requesting real estate agents to offer virtual tours on virtually every property.

"This is a communication tool that raises the bar for a more informed consumer," West said. "Customers will soon be demanding it. The result is a more efficient market."

• Traditional homebuyers looked at 15.1 homes with a Realtor prior to purchase compared to 7.9 homes for Internet buyers.
• Internet buyers spend 6.3 weeks investigating a real estate market before contacting a Realtor compared to 2.2 weeks for a traditional homebuyer.
• Of those who used the Internet, 97 percent said it helped them better understand the home-buying process.
• Of those who used the Internet, 92 percent used it to narrow their choices.
• Realtors were located via the Internet 78 percent of the time by online homebuyers.

About TRF Systems

VisualTour.com® is developed by TRF Systems, Inc. of Coral Springs, Florida. Incorporated in 1991, TRF Systems, Inc. is the leading provider of innovative digital photo management software and services in a number of vertical markets. For more information, please contact J. L. Winn at TRF Systems at (954) 345-9701 x220 or by email at jlwinn@visualtour.com. VisualTour® is a registered trademark of TRF Systems.