The latest research by the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, shows that 77 percent of home buyers in 2005 used the Internet in some capacity to search for a home, compared to just 2 percent in 1995. Further, when the buyers surveyed by NAR were asked where they first learned of the homes they bought last year, 24 percent identified the Internet, up sharply from 15 percent the previous year and overwhelmingly from 2 percent in 1997.

A few or the more popular for-sale sites are ForSaleByOwner.com, Realtor.com, Owners.com, Craigslist.org, Byowner.com, Fsbo.com, and Hometoursonline.

Sometimes, it’s all about marketing. The more quality pictures you can provide these sites, and the more vivid descriptions and selling points you write, the better. And the more space and services you use, the more you’ll pay, naturally. It helps to be very handy with a digital camera or to know someone who is. Many of these sites offer virtual tours that give potential buyers a 360-degree view of your home’s rooms. That photography generally has to be done by a professional.

One of the biggest advantages of a Web listing, by the way, is that it gives out-of-market buyers a means of looking over a home from afar — an important consideration in our ultra-transient society.

NAR, which is also a Realtor-advocacy organization, says the majority of Internet buyers and sellers still use an agent in some capacity to help shepherd along these Web transactions.

Sellers who choose to go the for-sale-by-owner, or FSBO, route can list their homes on their market’s official Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, for a flat fee that ranges from $200 to $500. The price often includes peripheral listings of their homes on the sites of local newspapers and other media, as well as on FSBO Web pages, etc.

More and more home buyers are also using the Web to enlist mortgage services and other real estate services, as well as to research pertinent data about school districts, tax rates, crime rates and community amenities. One Internet tool you might find useful in pricing your home is the online valuation service. The new Zillow site, for example, offers valuations of your home and area, illustrating them with satellite images of your home and neighborhood.

State regulators arrived in Kirkland on Friday morning to investigate the sudden closure of mortgage brokerage Merit Financial Inc. the day before.

All but 80 of the company’s 410 employees lost their jobs in the abrupt shutdown Thursday, which Merit attributed to rising interest rates and a consequent slowdown in business.

“It is a large company, and it does have to close its doors appropriately,” said Chuck Cross, a director of the state Department of Financial Institutions.

“I have no reason to believe anything is amiss, and we’ve heard no complaints from consumers, who are usually the first to tell us if something’s wrong,” he added. “But if there are violations, it’s our job to detect that and move from there.”

The agency is charged with regulating banks, credit unions and mortgage brokers, ensuring they follow state laws and rules, particularly the state’s Mortgage Broker Practices Act.

Cross said his two investigators are expected to report back to him next week, after checking whether Merit engaged in deceptive or misleading practices, failed to disclose important information, caused consumers to lose money in the shutdown or retained money improperly.

Complaints that the company has failed to pay some employees in part or in full — made anonymously to the Seattle P-I by several senior loan officers since Thursday — aren’t within the agency’s jurisdiction, he said. Those would be handled by the state’s Department of Labor and Industries.

Merit’s chief executive, Scott Greenlaw, said he’s confident the investigation will find no wrongdoing.

“We gathered the information and forwarded it to them. It’s not that big a deal. It’s to be expected,” he said.

He called the former loan officers’ complaints “absolutely false,” saying that “we are current with our payments as of right now.”

The next payroll is May 15, and he said “we certainly hope that one will be made.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Porter J. Goss was brought into the CIA to quell what the White House viewed as a partisan insurgency against the administration and to re-energize a spy service that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks or accurately assess Iraq’s weapons capability.  But as he walked out the glass doors of Langley headquarters yesterday, Goss left behind an agency that current and former intelligence officials say is weaker operationally, with a workforce demoralized by an exodus of senior officers and by uncertainty over its role in fighting terrorism and other intelligence priorities, said current and former intelligence officials.  Porter Goss viewed spies-turned-authors as political liabilities who embarrassed an already battered administration, former officials said. The CIA is now aggressively investigating — using polygraphs in some cases — employees who are suspected of leaking classified information to journalists, and last week the agency said it fired a senior official, Mary O. McCarthy, reportedly for having unauthorized contact with the news media.

In public, Goss once acknowledged being “amazed at the workload.” Within headquarters, “he never bonded with the workforce,” said John O. Brennan, a former senior CIA official and interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center until last July.  

Turf battles continue “Now there’s a decline in morale, its capability has not been optimized and there’s a hemorrhaging of very good officers,” Brennan said. “Turf battles continue” with other parts of the recently reorganized U.S. intelligence community “because there’s a lack of clarity and he had no vision or strategy about the CIA’s future.” Brennan added: “Porter’s a dedicated public servant. He was ill-suited for the job.”