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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scrapps who wrote (14813)	4/15/1998 2:22:00 PM
From: Moonray	Respond to of 22053

The ONLY good thing about this large a cut is that it will take (all?) the market share away from INTC. Pays them back for their antics a year ago. Even this is not cool if 3COM is taking a loss on this (rather than giving them away). I couldn't agree more with your comment at the end of your post o~~~ O

To: Scrapps who wrote (14813)	4/15/1998 3:58:00 PM
From: Moonray	Respond to of 22053

For a 4-Bedroom, 2.5-Bath Colonial, Click Here: Personal Wealth New York, April 15 (Bloomberg) -- This year's spring home buying season is expected to be one of the busiest ever, and consumers have a new tool to aid them in the often tedious home search process: the Internet. Spurred by the growing popularity of the World Wide Web to sell everything from books to cars, real estate brokers have set up sites on the Internet to accommodate people who don't have all day to sit in a car with an agent looking at houses that don't quite match their expectations. Consumers can search for homes on the Web by entering such information as how many bedrooms they want, their price range and the neighborhoods they desire. ''It's the most efficient way to shop for real estate,'' said Barbara Corcoran, whose Corcoran Group brokerage specializes in high-end Manhattan real estate. ''You search for a house on your schedule and you can accomplish most of the work before even calling a broker.'' Corcoran recently sold three Manhattan apartments for a total of $1.4 million to people who saw the properties on the Internet and didn't set foot in them before buying. She said the number of ''hits'' or visits on the company's Web site has more than doubled to 20,000 a day in the past three months. The largest and most popular real estate site on the Internet is Realtor.com, produced by the National Association of Realtors. It lists 1.1 million new and used homes for sale across the U.S. The site's Internet address is realtor.com. Other comprehensive home listing sites include Cyberhomes at cyberhomes.com and Homeseeker at homeseekers.com . Each has about 500,000 home listings that are updated weekly. Seven Hundred Neighborhoods Today, most major residential brokerage companies, including Coldwell Banker, Re/Max International, Century 21, and ERA run their own Web sites linking affiliates across the country. Many sites offer 360-degree views of a house and each of its rooms, information on local schools, cost of living, property taxes, and crime rates. Century 21's site covers more than 700 neighborhoods in the U.S. and Canada. Coldwell Banker's site includes comparable sale prices. ''I recommend consumers find a place where they can obtain lots of quality information and where the data is refreshed often,'' said Stewart Wolf, chief executive of RealSelect Inc., in Denver. which runs the National Association of Realtors' site. How do real estate brokers view the power of the Internet? A recent survey of brokers by the National Association of Realtors found that 89 percent believe the Internet provides an opportunity for their business, while 10 percent perceive it as a threat. One percent said the Internet's impact on their business is insignificant. On-line marketing company NewRealty.Com of Palo Alto, California, found that agents expect 1998 sales to increase four- fold over 1997, largely because of the Internet. Sales for agents with Internet business is expected to more than double to $1.86 million this year. A Human Touch For all its usefulness though, there's much the Internet can't do for home shoppers. For one, Web sites often don't tell consumers if a house has structural defects, sits under an airport's flight path, or is downwind from a landfill. Also, rooms can look smaller in person than in pictures. And the best houses at the best prices may not stay on the market long enough to make it on the web site listings. Most important -- it lacks a human touch. ''The web is wonderful for the amount of information one can obtain but it can't negotiate the best deal,'' said Regina Taylor, vice president of marketing for Coldwell Banker, based in Parsippany, New Jersey. Still, being on line is the next best thing to being on site, especially for people relocating to another part of the country. And after finding that dream home, consumers can return to the Web for information about mortgages and how much of a loan they can qualify for. Sites for mortgages include eloan.com, a joint venture between Homes & Land Publishing Ltd. and E-Loan; homes.com, also by Homes & Lands; and Liberty First Financial's loanguide.com . Personal note: The internet aided me in buying my cabin a year and a half ago. Saw picture/ad in a Real Estate magazine. Found realtor on Web along with location, more pix, price, more details. Visited realtor, cabin. Eventually bought. o~~~ O