THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 9, 1994 TAG: 9409090639
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Selling homes using interactive videos, hand-held computers or even pocket-sized multiple listings is creeping into the real estate industry.
These tools, once rare and costly, are out in the open and on sale.
Members of the Tidewater Association of Realtors got a firsthand look at the latest gadgets in home sale Thursday at its first-ever Business and Technology Fair to introduce modern conveniences into an oft-regarded staid business.
Twenty vendors and about 60 Realtors from different firms attended the trade show at the Holiday Inn Executive Center in Virginia Beach, which featured products ranging from the practical to the futuristic. Tidewater Association of Realtors sponsored the event to show real estate agents how technology could be incorporated into their jobs on a daily basis.
``We're one of the last sales industries to adopt technology,'' said Alan Thompson of Rose & Krueth. Thompson, chairman of the business information and technology committee for the Tidewater Association of Realtors, organized the trade show fair with TAR technology coordinator Stephanie Van Stone, because association members expressed an interest in the services available.
``Realtors are conservative and slow to change,'' he said. ``But they're realizing we need to. It's just the cost of doing business.''
Vendors displayed computers, cellular phones, copiers and pagers, as well as demonstrations of Internet services and multiple-listing services on hand-held computers.
One of the most interesting services not yet widely used by Realtors were interactive videos of houses that clients could view in the comfort of their home. Large and small companies like Bell Atlantic to Focus Business Systems, a Chesapeake computer company, offered variations of this house walk-through.
By hooking up a standard television or computer monitor to a modem or portable computer, residential real estate agents can show clients pictures of houses, rooms, and size and cost information by touching a screen or using hand-held computer devices, ``mouses.'' Equipment varies. Focus sells a link-up device for approximately $400 while Bell Atlantic sells hardware, software and the telephone line service for about $2,500.
``I like to see what's going on, but most of all, it's a chance to network,'' said Nancy O'Neal, a Realtor with Long & Foster in Virginia Beach. by CNB