Brokers staring down barrel of technology.

Marilyn Donahue is the first to admit that the technology revolution almost passed her by.

"The best I could do was get on the Internet--and then get off again," she recalled.

As the owner of a 25-agent brokerage firm, she was tech-savvy enough to know computers were banging at her door and did pay a company to create a website that contained her firm's listings.

Then, 12 months ago, all that changed when she sold her firm to residential powerhouse, Prudential Douglas Elliman, and became executive vice president and director of sales in Brooklyn.

Today, Marilyn's Blackberry is among her most valued possessions and business for her has grown "exponentially."

"That's the only word for it," she says. "We have a full service website and can track how many hits we get; we reach every market--everyone in the world comes in and asks questions on our website. Information is at our fingertips and we have wonderful back-up support from Prudential Douglas Elliman."

Every one of the 3,000 PDE agents has a fully functioning email system linked with their Blackberry, A sophisticated listing system keeps track of clients and is linked to client management databases. An integrated Internet with an internal website has all the forms a broker could ever want to use. Feedback is provided on how many times listings are viewed and what type of property people search for. By monitoring the 1.5 million visits to www.elliman.com, the IT department also provides brokers with data on trends and marketing initiatives.

Charles Olsen, chief technology officer at PDE, is responsible for making sure every one of the firm's employees has access to the latest technology and, just as importantly, knows how to use it.

"Today, the customer is typically younger, more tech savvy and demands instant response to emails and messages," said Olsen. "Brokers have to move with the times and learn how to use the technology their customers are using.

"By structuring excellent training programs in sizeable bites that they can understand, we are able to raise the level of technological awareness among the broker population and allow them to use technology with as much thought as they use getting into a car."

Today, 74% of homebuyers use the Internet to search for a home. Sixty-five percent of Hispanic adults own a computer and Hispanics spend an average of 9% more time online than the general U.S. consumer. Online real estate advertising is also predicted to surpass newspapers by 2009.

In short, a traditionally paper-intensive industry has been turned on its head by a technology revolution that offers a choice of services and options never before available. From RealPlus to web-based platforms; from virtual tours to Flash design; from search engine optimizing to blogs.

For the uninitiated, it's enough to prompt a crash in their internal systems.

At the Real Estate Board of New York, senior vice president Eileen Spinola cautions, "Clearly, the Internet has come into its own in the last five years. But being computer savvy isn't the be all and end all of success, its just one component--real estate is a people business; you have to develop the right skill sets to be a success and part of that is computer literacy."

If that's something you don't possess, then there are definitely ways around it.

She says, "There are many successful agents out there who can't stand to do board packages, so they bring someone on who is good at that. "If [technology] is not a talent you have, you can hire someone either to teach you or do all the computer work necessary."

Spinola confesses she was among the millions caught in a technology time warp and still has glitches as she chips away at the pit face of computer know-how.

For the past several years, though, she has helped develop a revolutionary system that has changed the face of online listings in New York.

The lack of a unified service in New York is certainly a cog in the wheel of technology here, but REBNY has attempted to bridge that gap with an electronic sharing of listings among members and a resultant extension of co-brokerage.

"This is a wonderful thing for the seller and purchaser, or landlord and tenant, because our service covers exclusives for sale and rent," says Spinola.

The system operates using a Realplus Online Listings EXchange communication device that allows any REBNY member to transmit information from his/her own in-house listings system, or platform.

The result, according REBNY, is a "historical accomplishment" for Manhattan's residential market. Never before has the city had 260 firms sharing exclusive listings in the manner they are now. Participating firms must list within 72 hours and some, such as Corcoran, post exclusives every 20 minutes.

Said Spinola, "As a trade association, our purpose is to make sure real estate is conducted in an ethical manner and to professionalize the industry.

"About 15 years ago, the community worked to bring co-brokerage to the forefront. That was a huge step and, from that point, it was looked at as how this could be done more efficiently. With the times, you change. We did it by email, now it's the Internet. Certainly, sellers and purchasers benefit because the property is sent out to more brokers and through co-brokerage sellers get the best price."

The beauty of technology means that some firms choose to have more than one platform, which allows them to access and communicate with other listings services.

As a result, there has been a growth in firms that specialize in getting those listings onto hundreds of different sites. This is sometimes called bundling.

Gary Streisand is the vice president at Visual Listings Systems, or VLS. His firm helps agents directly market their listings to buyers on the Internet. For $25 a month, VLS will provide unlimited listing everywhere from Craigslist to Homeseekers.com.

"It markets these listings directly, it's much faster and that's where most buyers want to go instead of going to print ads," said Streisand, who has done work for RE/MAX, Century 21 and ERA.

"People want something that is as user friendly as possible and they don't want any instructions. They want to get in front of a computer and click a button and that's what we offer. We are the starting point of sending your listings from one place. There is no set up cost, no development cost--it's a no-brainer."

Like most of the bigger firms, PDE also has a development team that designs the in-house website, runs a help desk, sends listings electronically to various Internet sites, builds specialized websites using Flash technology and develops search engine optimization techniques.

Dwelling Quest is among the smaller firms riding the crest of the technology wave and proving that you don't have to be a huge player to succeed.

As president Daren Hornig says, "There is no way to duck your head in the sand. You must embrace [technology] or be rolled over."

Before embarking on the residential brokerage business, Hornig founded a broadband communications firm that wired buildings with fiber optic infrastructures.

"My background makes me very focused on being the most technologically advanced company we can be," he says, before listing some of the ways technology is vital in his day-to-day business, from IP Telephony to web searching tool bars.

Hornig believes that smaller firms have an advantage over their larger rivals because of their very size--large firms, he believes, can labor over any changes to protocol.

"Technology starts with the leader and a lot of reasons it may not be so well embraced in the residential community is because leaders don't know what to do," he says. "A lot of times I talk to chief technology offices and they don't communicate with CEOs because of a lack of understanding about what they need and what's required, which makes it difficult to lead a technology charge in today's market."

Shaun Osher, of the full service CORE Group Marketing, agrees. "Technology has leveled the playing field," he says.

"Before, huge companies like Cendent or Prudential had a huge advantage over mine with huge data bases of listings and websites. The costs for these things have come down significantly and smaller brokers now have at their fingertips the same things.

"It used to be the bigger bucks ruled the way, but that's no longer the case. The future of real estate brokerage is with smaller companies because we are much more capable of moving with the trends and standing on the edge of technology."

Avi Lasri, of City Connections, is one of the younger generation of brokers who couldn't envision his life without modern technology, especially his Sidekick, which throws up his firm's listings on a tiny screen within seconds.

"My company is the only one in the city that has a portable listing system which allows me to use my Sidekick to access data," he explains. "If I'm out on the street with a client, right there and then I can find what he's looking for from our own database that's updated every second.

"It gives you a big advantage. When we didn't have it, we'd have to go back to the office and do a refined search. Now, the time it takes to find the right apartment is much shorter. "Manhattan real estate rental market is faster than any rental market in the world and there are thousands of brokers out there on daily basis.

"Having this portable listings system gives me an advantage over other brokers and that's the name of the game."

While Marilyn Donohue still covets her Blackberry, though, she says, "I think the technology simply supports and enhances the broker. You need a personal broker to make sales, the technology just widens the scope of knowledge and experience and understanding of the industry."

* This technology feature was compiled with assistance from Kelly Kreth, at Dwelling Quest, and Ross Anderson, at Posner Advertising.