SHOP FOR HOUSES AT HOME; INTERNET LISTINGS FIND FAVOR WITH BUSY BUYERS : ON-LINE HELP.

Byline: Vivian Marino Associated Press 

When Jayn Albury and her family decided to relocate from their Santa Fe, N.M., home, they did what most folks in their position would do - they looked at tons of homes, explored many towns and neighborhoods and talked to lots of people.

But the Alburys didn't have to leave their old home to find their new one, or even to become acclimated there.

Using their personal computer, Albury, 46, and husband Gordon, 68, canvassed the Internet day and night and eventually found the perfect three-bedroom historic house in Fredericksburg, Va., through an on-line listing of homes. They also located a new veterinarian for their pet cat and toy poodles, a dance studio for their two children and area restaurants.

``You can just sit there in your nightgown and type away. I was amazed at how much information there was,'' said Jayn Albury, adding that local maps she downloaded have helped familiarize the family with their new neighborhood.

Increasingly, individuals and professionals are turning to the Internet - and the more than 20,000 real estate pages on the World Wide Web, consumer on-line services and specialized databases - for help in a variety of real estate transactions.

Information about home listings, loans, taxes, home values, real estate laws and demographics is available in seconds with a few keystrokes. There's also an immense supply of material on insurance, appraisals, inspections and home repairs.

Buyers will still need to physically visit prospective properties and meet with professionals before closing a deal, but the information available on line can make them better-informed consumers. That can be especially useful to first-time buyers with little knowledge of the industry and for those relocating, like the Alburys. They saved time and money by not having to make repeated cross-country trips before their spring move.

``They're using the Internet to get a feel of what they want to tell their broker. The comfort level increases in preshopping,'' said Russell K. Booth, president of the National Association of Realtors, a Washington-based trade group that encourages member Realtors to market homes in cyberspace in addition to the traditional methods.

``It's one more tool. It's not going to supplant everything,'' said Booth, of Salt Lake City, who has Web pages for his commercial and residential real estate businesses. ``It's more fun than putting a `for sale' sign up.''

Real estate agents and lenders have been creating Web pages and listing property and services on line at a frenetic pace, a trend that began two years ago. By some accounts, as many as 200 Web pages are being set up each week.

About a quarter of all real estate companies already have Internet home pages and an additional 7 percent plan to create one in the future, according to a poll conducted last year by the NAR. Eight percent of individual agents have a Web site and 21 percent more plan to set one up, the poll found.

So far, though, only a fraction of sales have been generated on line. Eighty percent of those polled said they've gotten no business, though 1 percent reported getting more than 20 percent of its business from cyberspace.

Still, plugged-in PC users - that includes an estimated 15 percent of the U.S. population who subscribe to on-line services - are regularly browsing Web sites.

Pat Brown, director of Cobalt Group Inc. in Seattle, whose Home Scout site (www.homescout.com) provides 437,000 home listings nationwide, says around 6,000 people each day make a total of 10,000 searches and view 35,000 pages of information.

``It's a great way for them to look at the market and see what homes are going for,'' said Brown. ``They can see whether they can afford to move to a certain location or not.''

Since there are so many real estate sites to choose from, finding the right one can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned Internet user. Most people will need to do some surfing on their own to become familiar with what's out there.

A few useful real estate Web sites to help get started:

www.homefair.com, Home Buyer's Fair.

www.hud.gov, the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

www.homenet.com, Home Net.

www.homescout.com, Home Scout.

www.ired.com, International Real Estate Directory.

www.realtor.com, National Association of Realtors.

www.homeseekers.com, NDS Software of Minden, Nev.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: Gordon and Jayn Albury, with Jeffrey, 12, and Brittany, 10, are moving from Santa Fe, N.M., to a house in Virginia they found over the Internet.

Associated Press

Box: ON-LINE HELP (See text)