Builders don't get it.

Forty-two percent of consumers nationwide who purchased a home and had Internet access used the Net as a source of information, but only 29 percent of the nation's home builders have Web sites.

Likewise, 26 percent of home owners who performed home improvements researched the job on the Net, but they only had access to the 28 percent of the nation's contractors and 17 percent of sub contractors because that's how many have a Net presence.

"eMonitor: The Internet Impact Study," by Syosset, NY-based Beta Research found heavy consumer demand for Web-based new home and remodeling information, but a contrasting National Association of Home Builders' survey earlier this year reveals most builders aren't up to the task.

NAHB said 77 percent of builders, remodelers and subcontractors don't have company Web sites and more than half have no plans to launch them.

That's too bad because yet another survey said new home buyers out West have even more voracious Internet information appetites and are more than twice as likely as their resale home-buying counterparts to use the Internet to find a home and related information.

More than 60 percent of new home buyers in three Western states said they browsed for housing and related information, a 29 percent increase over last year and far more than resale shoppers, according to "Vision 2000: Designing the Next Generation of Homes" recently published by The Meyers Group, a real estate information and consulting firm.

From appraisers to Web-based brokers, the real estate industry is reconstructing itself with a digital infrastructure, but the building segment has barely lifted a hammer in cyberspace, according to "Net Gains" the cover story of the premier issue of Hanley-Woods "iHousing" magazine, devoted to chronicling the impact of the Internet on the home building industry.

"The Internet has been edging out its competitors in the housing industry at an unanticipated rate," said Boyce Thompson, editor-in-chief of the new trade journal which commissioned the Beta study.

"This research gave us the reason why -- consumers feel that it allows them the largest, most objective range of choices for their homes and projects," he added.

Yet, despite all the hoopla about "smart" home technology and outfitting new homes with enough Category 5 cable to reach the edge of the galaxy, builders often don't practice the technology they preach to consumers.

"Consumers get very suspicious if a builder does not have a Web site because they think 'How technologically advanced can they be if they don't have a Web site?' Don't they get it?' " said Deborah Johnson of the of Chicago-based Taylor Johnson Associates public relations firm and co-author of "The Builders' Publicity Builder" ( Taylor Johnson Associates, $29.95).

Beta's research agrees.

It says while more consumers use newspaper real estate listings, home center stores, local builders and contractors and real estate agencies, those who do browse for housing information online do so because they believe the best builders are online and the Net provides them with the easiest, quickest way to purchase materials and access builders, contractors and related professionals.

Johnson says while larger regional or national builders have solid online foundations, smaller builders, contractors and remodelers don't have the digital framework to cash in on consumer wealth.

"We know from our clients that buyers using the Internet are much more educated and potentially more ready to buy. (Web-less builders) are going to miss that portion of the market," she says.

It's not just homes and home improvements housing consumers buy, but related and non-related goods and services as well. New home buyers need to fill their flats and home improvement shoppers don't stop at building material purchases.

Beta Research said of all new home buyers surveyed 64 percent make at least one purchase a week on the Net. Among remodeling consumers, 38 percent of them make weekly online purchases.

Johnson, whose publicity firm offers Web-building services for builders and other real estate industry professionals, says builders who don't have Web sites are often inexperienced technophobes who fall victim to a self-imposed marketing Catch-22.

"A lot of small builders can't use the computer or the Net or they don't understand it and they avoid it even while their salespeople are saying it's a new part of marketing," Johnson said.

"If they don't have a Web site they can't verify that home buyers are looking at them. Until they have one they just can't see it," she added.

Published: October 6, 2000

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.