Norwest Mortgage, Inc., the nation's leading provider of home mortgages, announced that it has entered into a multi-year marketing and advertising agreement with Homestore.com, one of the largest online providers of real estate products and services. The two companies will focus on satisfying a wide array of consumers' home finance and related needs through the Internet. In fact, Norwest Mortgage's parent, Wells Fargo signed its one-millionth online banking customer this week.

Norwest Mortgage and Homestore.com will use the Internet to bring home financing information to borrowers in conjunction with real estate professionals and home builders across the nation. Homestore.com manages four leading real estate-related Internet sites, including REALTOR.com, the official web site of the National Association of Realtors that lists more than 1.37 million homes for sale across the nation. REALTOR.com currently has more consumers using their website each month than any other home listing site on the Web today. In addition, Homestore.com operates Homebuilder.com, the official new home site of the National Association of Homebuilders which has more than 100,000 new homes; < a href="http://www.springstreet.com">Springstreet.com, which has more than 6 million apartments in 6,000 cities and Commercialsource.com, a commercial real estate site with over 150,000 commercial properties.

Under the agreement, Norwest Mortgage will secure a variety of marketing placements for its home finance products on all of Homestore.com's web sites. The company also will advertise Wells Fargo & Company's consumer and commercial banking products on Homestore.com sites. Additionally, links will be developed to connect Homestore.com sites with Norwest Mortgage and Wells Fargo web sites offering services to real estate professionals, home builders and consumers.

"The Internet has established itself as an important consumer tool for gathering information and doing business. At Norwest Mortgage, we are actively developing ways to leverage the Internet to complement our existing sales channels and reach more home buyers across the country," said Pete Wissinger, group managing director, sales and operations, Norwest Mortgage.

"That is why we are so excited to be able to team with real estate professionals and home builders through the nation's leading Internet provider of real estate information. Homestore.com clearly leads the residential and apartment listing arena and serves as an important tool for real estate professionals and builders throughout the U.S."

"Much of Norwest's success is due to our strong partnerships with real estate professionals and builders. Through our strategic alliance with Homestore.com, we expect to further solidify those relationships by bringing value-added home financing information to Homestore.com sites that will further help builders and brokers sell more homes. However, the ultimate winner will be home buyers who now will have more information for a home purchase available at their fingertips," said Wissinger.

"Our relationship with Norwest will bring consumers well rounded and relevant home and mortgage information and will help raise the bar for online home shopping and mortgage content," said Stuart Wolff, CEO of Homestore.com.

"We are currently building our web site as a financial destination site. Our goal is to become the financial portal of choice for our customers, providing them with not only financial products and services, but also products and services that are linked, related and relevant," said Clyde Ostler, group executive vice president of Wells Fargo's Internet Services.

"We are always open to alliances and partnerships that provide new features and functions for our customers."

Over time, by simplifying the information gathering process involved in purchasing a home, both companies believe this alliance will help make home buying easier for consumers.