More ways than ever to find that dream house

Data-rich websites are changing the real estate business in a fundamental way

In the beginning, home buyers hired real estate agents because they needed information. How else to know which homes were for sale? Or what price was fair? Or the proper reaction to a form that said your children might be poisoned by lead?

Agents served buyers not just as personal shoppers, but as personal reference libraries, constantly available to translate obscure language, to validate decisions, and to offer the comfort that you were making the same choices as other people.

All for a handsome fee. The buyer paid for the home, and the seller gave 3 percent of the price to the buyer's agent.

As it has done to other businesses, the Internet is changing the real estate industry. A 2007 survey by the National Association of Realtors found 84 percent of buyers now use the Web to search for homes - the same share that use a real estate agent.

Many buyers simply search directories created by the traditional real estate industry, the so-called multiple listing services where companies list properties available for sale. A limited version of these listings is widely available, but increased access generally requires signing up for access to an agent's website. And even then, some of the data usually remain hidden from public view. Online real estate start-ups such as Redfin.com offer discounted access to complete MLS listings.

Meanwhile, sellers and their agents also are listing the same properties on open services such as those found at Yahoo.com, Google.com, and Craigslist.com. Some properties listed on those sites - and others like ForSalebyOwner.com and FSBO.com - cannot be found in the MLS directories.

As a result, buyers have more ways than ever to search for a home.

For example, Trulia.com offers "heat maps," or color-coded maps of property values that can help shoppers figure out which parts of a metropolitan area are in their price range.

Google Maps (maps.google.com) lets users search by zooming in on a geographical area. The search can be further restricted by standard attributes such as price, or the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. The site also allows users to search for particular language in the listing, such as "fireplace" or "slate roof."

Once you've found some homes to visit, you can turn to the aptly named IdealRoute.com, which mimics another classic agent duty - mapping out a day of visits to homes. The site was created by the Virginia Association of Realtors for the benefit of its members, but it works just as well for others. Type in the addresses of several homes you'd like to visit, and the site returns directions for the quickest route.

Once you've found a desirable home, it's time to take the measure of the surrounding neighborhood. While online tools are no match for a good conversation with a longtime resident, and some are more mesmerizing than practical, they increasingly offer answers to the most basic questions.

Trulia.com integrates information about schools, including a quality rating from GreatSchools.net, into each property listing. Less helpful is TruliaHindsight, an interactive map that shows the development of a town over time.

Walkscore.com allows users to quickly survey neighborhood amenities for a given address, including the nearest supermarkets and drugstores, coffee shops and bars, parks and libraries. The information is presented on an interactive map, with a score summarizing the "walkability" of each neighborhood.

And in many cities, it's possible to find online crime maps that can help you judge the safety of a neighborhood, such the map of violent crime in Boston at UniversalHub/Crime.

The Internet also makes it easy for armchair analysts to research property values. Most counties have put property records online, making it simple to check the past sales prices for a particular home. Prospective buyers also can check the square footage figures used by the county - often lower than the figures listed by the real estate agent - and the taxable value of a home.

Sites such as Zillow.com return immediate information on the sales of comparable properties. And several services, like Domania.com, allow buyers to purchase an automated appraisal of a property's value - the same kind of automated assessment used by many mortgage companies to check the work of appraisers. Domania charges $30.

Many buyers still prefer to work with a real estate agent, of course - they might not have the time or inclination to do their own research. Or they decide an agent with years of experience can conduct research more effectively. But the Internet does give do-it-yourself buyers an opportunity. And that is a fundamental change.