When dieters want to lose weight, they put pictures of their skinnier selves on the refrigerator. When Internet homebuyers start shopping for a home, they look at homes on the Internet.

It's all about staying pumped to reach a goal.

That's what we have been saying at Realty Times for a long time. We've been encouraging all agents to adopt top e-mail communication and lead retention tools to serve this new generation of homebuyers because they start the homebuying process earlier and spend longer at it. The payoff for Realtors is that when it comes time to choose a home, these better-prepared buyers act quickly and decisively, saving their agents time, trouble and expense.

Where it breaks down is many agents aren't prepared or trained to work with buyers during the information-gathering stage. Failure to find a way to work and retain these types of leads has reached frustrating levels for brokers and agents alike. Many wonder why having listings and Web sites online isn't enough to seal the deal, when they should be working on establishing points of difference - reasons why Internet buyers should choose them over other options.

That doesn't seem to be much of a problem in California where plenty of agents have figured out how to make the Internet work for them. A new survey by the California Association of REALTORS® says that Internet buyers are not only choosing their agents online (79 percent), but they are communicating 88 percent of the time with their Realtors via e-mail.

The key for the success of these Realtors is patience with the slower-to-act Internet consumers, and the ability to deliver required information via e-mail.

Internet homebuyers, found C.A.R.'s 2002 Internet Buyer versus Traditional Buyer Study, devoted more time to researching and investigating their homebuying options early in the homebuying process than traditional buyers. Internet buyers spent an average of 5.8 weeks contemplating their home purchase before contacting a Realtor, almost four weeks more than the traditional buyer's 2.1-week average.

Internet buyers also spent 4.5 weeks investigating the market before contacting an agent, almost three weeks longer than the average of 1.8 weeks spent by traditional buyers.

Yet, when it came time to view homes, traditional buyers spent more than three times as much time looking for a home than Internet buyers, and viewed over twice as many homes in person (15.2 homes) as the Internet buyer (7.5 homes.)

Observed C.A.R. President Robert Bailey, "By going online before they actually started looking for a home to purchase, consumers using the Internet showed a higher degree of understanding of the homebuying process, knew what they wanted, and therefore, showed higher levels of satisfaction with their recent homebuying experience, and with their Realtors."

Fears that many agents have that the Internet intercepts buyers from them should be squashed with this finding - that while Internet buyers felt more in control of the homebuying process than traditional buyers, they were using the Internet to preview homes and to get information on specific homes to look at with their Realtors as well as to obtain information on home financing.

According to the report, here are other key findings:

• Seventy-three percent of Internet buyers went online in search of a real estate agent and more than three-quarters (79 percent) of Internet buyers found their real estate agent online. Most traditional buyers found their agents through brochures, flyers, and mailers (44 percent) and referrals (19 percent).

• Brokerage Web sites (82 percent) edged Realtor.com (73 percent) and individual agent Web sites (67 percent) as most visited by Internet buyers.

• A higher proportion of Internet buyers were first-time homebuyers (11 percent), compared to 6 percent of traditional buyers.

• Internet buyers are younger, wealthier and buy more expensive homes. At a median age of 37 years, 66 percent of Internet buyers earned an annual salary of $150,000 or more (compared to 39 percent of traditional buyers,) and bought a median priced home of $452,000, while traditional buyers clocked in at 43 years of age and purchased a median priced home of $310,000.

"It looks like the Realtors are getting the best from the Internet. Listing and selling agents are showing fewer homes and making quicker deals with Internet buyers," says Jody Lane, CEO of Realty Times. "This is great for everybody. The Internet buyer may feel more in control as a more informed consumer, but the Realtor is still in control of the transaction. How can this be bad?"

So, which would you rather do? Drive buyers to look at a number of homes they don't like, or allow them to eliminate and select homes for viewing online? The agents who understand how to serve consumers online, and retain their interest and attention with market conditions, homebuying information, and other data will be the ones that get to close sales with Internet buyers.