Orlando Realtors Pulling Out All the Stops

Rhonda Morgan is pulling out all the stops.

For recent open houses, the 41-year-old Orlando Realtor is bringing big signs, balloons and people in costumes out by the street to wave to passers-by. She even bakes cookies in the listed homes and sometimes serves wine and cheese.

But Morgan, a computer-systems administrator before switching careers a year ago, spends most of her time selling real estate on the Internet: doing research, updating the multiple listings service and interviewing prospective customers.

“I probably spend 70 percent of my time on my computer,” she said.

As the Central Florida housing market cools down after a five-year boom, real estate agents here and elsewhere are resorting to whatever it takes. Whatever does the job to encourage home sales, they’re willing to do.

Technology — specifically, the Internet — is changing, in fundamental ways, the nature of the process. There may always be sign-waving clowns and cookies baking in the oven, but the Internet is playing a bigger role in how the industry brings real estate agents and prospective home buyers together.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp., for example, parent company of Florida’s largest residential real estate agency, recently launched an online service that allows potential customers to receive personalized listings and daily Florida mortgage updates.

The company also allows would-be buyers to type questions on its Florida-specific website, floridamoves.com, which automatically generates voice mails for a quick response from a nearby real estate agent.

The MLS, once a closely guarded list of homes for sale by professionals, is now more widely available at many websites. And new online services launch almost weekly. The National Association of Realtors estimates that three of every four home buyers now use the Internet to search for a house; every month, about 16 million people browse the group’s listings online.

Almost 8 of every 10 real-estate firms have a website, half of which have been up and running for more than five years.

“We’re moving down the Internet highway, and we’re moving a lot faster,” said Houston Briggs, an agent near Kissimmee who buys and sells rental properties and teaches real estate at Valencia Community College. “It’s just so much easier to do research now, particularly in public records.”

Many real estate sites also map the location of listed homes, calculate monthly Florida home loan payments, post local school ratings, offer “virtual tours” and serve up photos from ground level to bird’s-eye.

Realtors say the shift to the Internet favors agents who are nimble and tech-savvy; it also extends the marketing reach of individuals and small agencies, putting them on a more even footing with larger competitors.

“My background in technology has given me an upper hand,” said Morgan, who switched to real estate last year just as Orlando home sales began retreating from record heights.

Century 21 agent Christian Frazier created video commercials for the homes he lists in Central Florida, viewable from his site as well as on Google, Yahoo and other sites. Frazier, 35, was a computer-network specialist before he got into real estate five years ago.

With more listings and fewer Florida home loans taken out by borrowers, an agent needs every edge he or she can get. Frazier credits his tech skills with helping him become the top Century 21 sales agent among the 150 or so agents in the Orlando area.

Frazier estimates that 90 percent of his $20 million in sales this year have been through the Internet.

“Buyers and sellers find you on the Internet,” Frazier said.