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There's a big difference between listing a home and selling a home. Nowhere is this more evident than on the Internet, which has evolved into an excellent advertising medium. When combined with newspapers, real estate magazines, direct mail, and other marketing tools, the World Wide Web can play a large role in exposing your home to potential buyers.

Many buyers begin their search online to educate themselves about neighborhoods and to locate homes in their price range. While the listing exposes your home, it does not sell your home. Once buyers have targeted some attractive possibilities, they still turn to a qualified real estate agent to represent their best interests as they plan their purchase.

Talk in detail with your representative about your home's online presence, and get some ideas from current offerings on the brokerage's website. You can ask to preview your online listing, and in many cases, you'll be able to offer a "virtual tour" of your property. More and more buyers are taking advantage of this powerful marketing tool, and you can also take full advantage by presenting your home in warm and bright full color photos and video.

Don't worry - you won't need a digital camera or video recorder. The real estate agent has all the tools and skills necessary to produce a feature that puts your home in the spotlight!

How Does that Compute?

The growth of information technology in real estate has provided benefits to both agents and consumers. Not only are buyers and sellers better informed and more demanding, but real estate agents are also able to offer a higher level of service.

When computers and the Internet first came to prominence and use in real estate, the expectation was that access to all that information would soon replace the need for representation in the sales transaction. Why then would there be so many more agents practicing now? In the real estate industry, the number of agents, the use of technology, and economic growth have all increased together over the years.

Now consumers can view listings online, research neighborhood demographics, and even find a lender after shopping around for the best rates and lowest fees. All of this creates a more educated homeowner or buyer, who understands the benefits of representation.

It's almost like "information overload," and the real estate agent is there to translate all the input, as well as assist with complicated matters like title insurance, inspections, legal documents, negotiations, and more.

Real estate, like law or medicine, is not something you learn on Internet search engines like Google or Yahoo. There may be such a thing now as virtual reality, but there can never be virtual realty, and there should never be a virtual agent!