Real estate yard signs are going high-tech by conveying listing information to mobile phones via a new wireless marketing service, but that doesn't mean they are any better at delivering the elusive buyer.

ClearSky's iCODE^TM service delivers listing information using the text messaging capabilities of mobile phones.

The first live rollout of iCODE for real estate is in Windermere, Florida where homebuyers can now learn more about the listings of Main Street Realtors by entering a short code number displayed on the yard sign into their mobile phones. The iCODE service responds with a text message containing information on the home.

iCODE stands for "Information Code" and is simple to use, even for the text messaging novice, suggests the company. Buyers go to the text messaging feature in his or her phone, enters the iCODE number "88999" as the "To:" address and then puts in the home's four-character code from the yard sign as the body of the message. In just a few seconds, the iCODE service responds with information about the house. iCODE works today on AT&T/Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon phones with additional carriers soon to be added, says the company.

"Flyers attached to yard signs have been nothing but problems for us, yet people want instant information about a house they are driving by," said Judy Black, owner/broker of Main Street Realtors. "iCODE is the answer."

That's an understatement. Among other things, flyers are hard to keep filled, they're exposed to elements, they are time-consuming and expensive to produce, and difficult to monitor, especially when people take whole stacks of them.

For Black, it's about the esthetics. "They don't look right - to have so many things hanging off the sign," she says.

Yet, it's sellers who demand such tools for exposure for their property. That's why even though she would like to give up making flyers, Black has downloadable flyers on her Website for buyers who have to have something paper.

But it's not the neatness factor that jumps out about this product - it's the potential for brokers to get the one piece of information that buyers seldom lie about - their cellphone numbers. A call to ClearSky's PR produced a wrong number, so Realty Times turned back to Black.

Black says she gets a list of the cellphone numbers, but doesn't know if it is all right to call the homebuyers. She says she and ClearSky haven't discussed the issue.

Huh?

"I don't know what these call rules are anymore," says Black. "I have to be very careful before I make cold calls, but it might be possible to text message a thank you. It's been a test for us through the holidays and we'll have time later to think about things like that. So far, I'm impressed."

It would seem that the lead capture capability of the iCODE would be its strongest selling feature, but not if a broker doesn't know whether or not she can use it to return calls from buyers.

In several weeks of trial, Black reports that the codes are working and she's received several out-of-state numbers, but so far has not called any buyers back.