In the past, if you were considering buying a co-op or condo apartment, you would have relied mostly upon the classified ads in the local newspapers and journals to find your broker and your new home - or perhaps you would have passed several real estate offices on your way to work or on your Sunday stroll and stopped to read the listings posted in the windows. Buyers, sellers and brokers now have another powerful tool at their fingertips"¦ their computers. As easy as it is to order pizza, groceries, or a new pair of pants, anyone anywhere in the city or around the world can visit brokerage firms online and see what listings they have to offer; all from home or office.

According to Brad Inman of Inman News, an independent news source for the real estate industry, "This a different market in a world where everything's becoming transparent, everything's opening up; the consumer has all the information. The Internet by definition is openness, sharing information, where the consumer is now in charge. So that has changed everything," he says.

Indeed. It's safe to say the Internet has changed the way people around the world interact with each other and do business profoundly and permanently - and the real estate industry has certainly changed as well. But how, exactly?

"Years ago, the real estate business was about networking," according to William Hunt III, president of Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy, a large Manhattan-based real estate firm. "Sellers would provide their listings to two or three brokerage firms that came highly recommended to them by friends or family, and brokers spent a lot of time building relationships with sellers in order to get these listings. Most of the business that came in was through word of mouth. People talked to other people who had a positive experience with a real estate firm or particular broker. Today, that only gets your foot in the door in order to do a presentation. There could be two, three or more firms competing for the business."

"Sellers would also find brokers through the classified advertisements," adds Sandy Mattingly, an associate broker at Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy. "They would see which firms were advertising which properties and made decisions based on these criteria. Many firms used what we call "˜window dressing,' which were posters with photos and listings placed in the firm's office windows to attract buyers and sellers as well."

Classified ads are still a tried and true method for getting the word out there to the public about a firm's current listings. According to Dottie Herman, president and CEO of Prudential Douglas Elliman, another key player in New York area real estate, print newspapers will still be available for a certain segment of the population - "but I think we all reach people the way they need to be reached," she says. "The Internet reaches a different, maybe younger, audience."

With a view toward reaching that audience, the Internet has given brokers the ability to build a strong, attractive, user-friendly Web presence and provide much greater information than it is possible through the old-fashioned classifieds. Buyers and sellers alike can go to a real estate firm's website and expect to see detailed descriptions of most of the properties the firm is listing, along with photographs of the building, neighborhood, and views. If they still want more information, many firms also include a graphic of the floor plan - information that would have been either exorbitantly expensive to place in a classified ad or impossible due to space constraints.

Apartment hunting in Manhattan can be a time-consuming, somewhat frustrating endeavor that can befuddle even the most seasoned city dweller. So whether you are buying or selling your condo and moving to a new home, a discriminating buyer will look for units based on size, location and price range. To help ease that search, there is a user-friendly Web-based resource that will allow you to compare one apartment against another.

Condo-sales.com, a Web-based resource from premier real estate publisher Yale Robbins, Inc., contains the most comprehensive data on Manhattan condominium sales. The website's apartment information not only includes floor plans, sales price and date but also a unit breakdown by room and/or bedroom and a price breakdown by square foot and/or room. And the database of building information even includes the year the apartment was built and/or converted to condo, the height and number of units, as well as a list of building amenities and photographs.

Condo-sales.com features an easy-to-use search engine that allows the user to select numerous sales of interest and then capture that information into a customized condo sales report that details the price, size and floor plan of a particular apartment. Once the user's search is complete, the report can be downloaded in a pdf format for a nominal fee.

"It is amazing, but the Internet accounts for 80 percent of the interest of prospective buyers and sellers," says Mattingly. "People still peruse the classifieds in the New York Times and other publications, but the Internet provides a lot more impact when it comes to listing a property. The ability to add several photographs of the property, detailed descriptions and floor plans make it a much more powerful medium for people than a classified."

According to Pam Liebman, president and CEO of the Corcoran Group, one of the city's largest brokerage firms and one with an extensive online presence, "I think the Internet has definitely changed the way we do business, and we really embraced the Internet early on and spent a fortune getting our site up to where we wanted it to be."

Buyers can now search the different sites with specific criteria in mind and see, in a matter of minutes, a multitude of properties that fall within their price range, location, square footage, style, and so forth. Prior to the dawn of online listings, brokers might spend weeks or even months showing dozens of apartments to prospective buyers.

According to the National Association of Realtors, 53 percent of buyers used the Internet as a frequent source of research when purchasing a home. This is not to say the real estate agent is no longer an integral part of the process, but 90 percent of buyers used an agent to help them with their search and the overall process.

"The number of showings has gone down significantly with the presence of the Internet," says Hunt. "In the past, brokers would show a prospective buyer over 20 properties. Today, that number has dropped considerably - somewhere between seven and 11."

"Years ago, it would take weeks and possibly months of showing properties to a prospective buyer before they found what they wanted," agrees Mattingly. "Today, this is not the case."

In addition to being fast, the Internet has the power to dissolve borders. A prospective buyer in London planning to relocate to Manhattan can research available properties via the Internet before setting foot on a plane.

The Internet has changed the city's rules and regulations governing real estate. In the past, real estate firms could have exclusive listings. This is no longer a valid practice. Because of the near-infinite reach of the Internet, third-party software systems, and lack of an official multiple listing service (or MLS) in New York City, both the ability and the desire to share listings amongst brokerage firms has increased. Some organizations, such as the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) have implemented significant changes to their membership requirements to compel brokers to share. Presently 234 member firms in Manhattan are participating in sharing listings, according to REBNY president Steven Spinola.

"There are also fines for those who don't share their listings with other brokers within 72 hours," says Spinola, "from $250 for a first offense going up to $5,000 for a third offense."

"Any firm with an exclusive has to share it with the other firms within a 72-hour period," says Mattingly. "Otherwise, they will be fined. The firm owns the listing for a period of six months. Should the property be sold by another brokerage firm not owning the exclusive, they must share the commission 50-50 with the broker owning the exclusive."

"We're big believers in sharing information," says Liebman. "Although we don't have a formal MLS, we all share our listings - thankfully to Steve and the Real Estate Board of New York - and we have a wonderful system. We share our listings the second we get them and we're allowed to hold them for 72 hours. I don't think we could do without it. The foundation on which we built our company is being inclusive, not exclusive. So we very much believe in sharing."

Another useful listing service, according to Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy's David Michonski, belongs to the Manhattan Association of Realtors (MANAR). MLS Manhattan.com, in which nearly 30 Manhattan firms share their listings, which are automatically linked to www.realtor.com, the National Association of Realtors' official web presence.

Even with the convenience and speed of the Web, brokers still need to master a combination of people skills and know how to build relationships with their prospective and current clients if they expect success. But even this is different than it was in the pre-online days.

"People skills are different today than in traditional times," says Mattingly. "You do not necessarily have the opportunity to build relationships face-to-face. There is a lot of communication done electronically via e-mail. Prospective buyers seek an immediate response from a broker, and you must be able to provide that. There is more of a sense of immediacy in the market these days. If they do not get what they want when they want it, they move on to another broker."

When it comes to technology, a broker nowadays has to know how to use their new tools effectively. At a bare minimum, they must be well-versed in using software applications for contact and calendar management.

"Agents today really need to be more technologically savvy," says Hunt. "They need to know Excel, Word, Outlook and all the third party software we use. There has been an enormous jump in business since the introduction of the Internet, and there is greater competition. Agents these days are doing a lot more to promote themselves in order to capture that business. They do e-mail blasts, newsletters - some even use publicists in order to raise their profiles. It is truly amazing how the role of the real estate agent has changed."

More and more firms are spending a greater proportion of their budgets on the latest and greatest technology in order to give their agents a competitive advantage. When it comes down to it, the firm which can provide the best listings faster than the other players out there will win the business.

"A lot of time, money and energy has gone into investing in technology in order to remain competitive," says Hunt.

Mattingly concurs. "Companies are spending a fortune on technology. It is about the hardware, the software and third-party vendors who can slice and dice the data"¦back office technology is crucial in order to maintain the brokerage firm current with the top listings."

"I think consumers want information," says Liebman, who notes that corcoran.com receives in the neighborhood of one million hits a month. "That's the key thing. If I'm looking for something I don't want to look at an ad and wait for a return phone call. I want to go on the Internet, I want to see the pictures, I want to see the price, and then I want to research what other things sold for. We've become a population that is looking for immediate gratification. What's great about the Internet is that you get immediate gratification."