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A study conducted by NPD Online Research found that over 50% of people who use the Internet and are looking to buy real estate use the Internet to shop for real estate properties.
The study found that residential properties were the most commonly looked for on the web. Almost 65% of people who use the Internet have looked for real estate online. Of that 65%, 88% looked for residential properties, with three-quarters looking for houses, about 10% looking for condos, and 2% looking for co-ops. 42% were looking to buy their first residential property.
Though the Internet real estate market it still young, the study found that it is starting to lead the market in interest and sales. Of those surveyed, almost 20% said that their online shopping led to contacting a real estate agent and 7% said that their searching led to actually buying a home they saw online.
Pamela Smith, the Vice President of NPD Online Research, said that the Web is a powerful took for selling real estate. Going and looking at real estate takes up the most time in the entire process, and the Internet eliminates a lot of that time. Buyers can look at dozens of different properties in the time it would take to drive to and physically look at only one property.
Like most consumer shopping online, the popularity of using the Internet to search for real estate is largely due to its convenience. Have those surveyed, 85% attributed their Internet shopping to convenience. 61% said that the Internet saves time, and 38% said it gives them an extremely wide selection of properties to choose from.
The survey found that the most popular sites for online real estate shopping were realtor.com, where 40% of shoppers look, and century21.com, where 39% of shoppers look. Other leading sites were remax.com and coldwellbandker.com, each with 28%.
Price is another issue in online shopping. Properties that were listed under $200,000 had the most hits. 43% of shoppers looked at properties that were between $50-100,000. 42% looked at properties listed between $100-200,000. A mere 15% of shoppers looked at properties listed at more than $200,000.
The NPD Real Estate Buying Survey submitted a questionnaire to their Online Panel, which consists of 2,355 people who were conscripted to constitute a cross-section for the purpose of Internet surveys. It was completed in June.
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