Internet sites cater to niche home buyers

Mary Umberger


Internet sites cater to niche home buyersPublished July 23, 2006

Sure, you've been told again and again that people start their house-hunting journeys online, but the Internet as a real estate tool goes beyond just scrolling through listings. Selections from the latest crop of services for home buyers and sellers:- It's a time-honored tradition in America: Tuck a note into a stranger's mailbox that says, "I love your house. If you ever want to sell it ..." or words to that effect.Now, you can do that online--that is, if you happen to be in Finland. A Web site there, www.igglo.fi, claims to have photographed and mapped every building in Helsinki. Would-be buyers can earmark properties that interest them and post offers to buy online in case the owner happens to check in--which, given human nature, isn't unlikely these days.The concept has washed up on our shores--Redfin.com, an online Seattle brokerage, has obtained a U.S. patent on a similar concept.- Propertyshark.com (a curious name for a real estate Web site, if ever there was one) has found a way to meld property-hunting with romance.As a sideline to its primary role as a source of real-estate sales data, it has developed maps that purportedly pinpoint neighborhoods populated by wealthier single men. For example, areas where the average single man's income is more than $100,000 a year are noted by a "$$$" symbol; areas where the average is $80,000 to $100,000 a year get an "$$," etc. The maps color-code "single-men abundancy" in seven categories, ranging from Meat Market to Wedlocked. It doesn't provide this utterly critical information for Chicago.- And while we're at the intersection of real estate and mapping, here's one that might help you learn whether, instead of Mr. Wonderful, you're moving in next door to Mr. Yecch.MapSexOffenders.com does what its name implies: Enter an address or ZIP code, and the site provides a map with icons marking the locations of registered sex offenders. Click on the icon, and you get a photo of the offender.- Apparently this is a niche that heretofore has been unfilled: Web sites that will match consumers to agents of a specific faith.CatholicAgent.com claims to be "a source for Catholics throughout the USA to find a Catholic real estate agent for their next move ... so that the faithful can provide work to those within the Catholic community."We also have JewishAgent.com: "You'd like to know where the JCC is, shuls or kosher dining. ... We're here to connect you with people who are in the know, wherever you are moving," the site promises.- From the doorstep to your desktop: For decades, a visit from Welcome Wagon meant that a smiling neighbor lady would drop by the homes of newcomers, bearing a wealth of local information--and special offers from merchants--to help the adjustment to a neighborhood. Those visits went away in 1998, mostly because the lady of the house was at work and nobody was there to answer the door. Well, it's back now--or, at least, welcomewagon.com is--as an online unit of Move.com, and the smiling neighbor lady has gone totally virtual. Warm, isn't it?----------

Hear Mary Umberger on WBBM Newsradio 780 at 6:21 p.m. and 10:22 p.m. each Thursday and Friday and 7:20 a.m. each Saturday and Sunday.mumberger@tribune.com