The tour starts outside the Georgian mansion in Guilford, with its stately stone facade and Palladian window, then moves into a grand entrance hall. Next you're in the living room, then the dining room. You scrutinize large windows, high ceilings, an elegant brick fireplace. Yet you haven't taken a step.
The tour actually takes place in a basement office on Mount Royal Avenue, the nerve center of the computerized list of homes for sale in metropolitan Baltimore run by Mid-Atlantic Real Estate Information Technologies.
A single stroke on a keyboard fills a monitor with a color image of the home, on the market for $749,000. Several more key clicks reveal the interiors, room by room.
Real estate agents in Baltimore City and Baltimore, Carroll, Howard and Harford counties soon will be able to lead buyers on similar tours. By early next year, buyers will be able to view homes from most real estate offices -- thanks to technological advances that, for the first time, make photographs part of the region's multiple list.
The new system, an option that has been offered to real estate agents for only a few weeks, could have implications for the way consumers buy and sell homes, officials of MARIT say.
For one thing, it should help speed the house-hunting process. It also could be used as a new way to market homes and help boost sales, agents say.
"If you think into the future and what this could lead to, this is like shopping for a house from a catalog, like we shop for a lot of things today -- because we're so busy," said Shelley Chinskey, an agent with Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. in Westminster, one of the first offices MARIT trained in the new technology.
Until now, the multiple list has described homes by price, style, neighborhood, age and number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Computers have given real estate agents access to listings in metropolitan Baltimore and beyond for the past several years. Agents can do computer searches by location and price range and often print out information for potential buyers.
Exterior photos on the printouts will help buyers distinguish one home from another and help them better remember homes they've toured, agents said. The new feature also could cut down on time spent by buyers and agents alike driving from home to home -- given that some buyers reject homes based solely on exterior appearance, Ms. Chinskey said. The service might be especially useful to buyers who are relocating, she said.
