Years ago, Molly Bolanos looked for a home the old-fashioned way: She spent hours driving around in her real estate agent's car, hoping for the best and girding for the worst.One recent morning, the process went like this: Bolanos and her fiance were alerted to a new listing online. They checked out the pictures on the Internet, then drove over for a real-life look and, within hours, were preparing to make an offer.
"It can be 24 hours - as quick as 24 hours that you're out making the offer - and it's because of the Internet," the Seattle resident said.
Add real estate to the list of industries being forever changed by the Internet.
Home listings - once printed out in books available only to real estate agents - are obtainable to everyone online, accompanied by increasingly sophisticated photographs and virtual tours. Now, a growing number of online services are also cropping up to help people do things like judge house prices, survey neighborhoods and evaluate school districts, long before they ever snap the seat belt in their agents' cars.