Survey released by Prudential CA/NV/TX Realty shows that home buyers most often first learn of their new home from a Realtor.

A new Prudential study shows that 36% of buyers who bought a home in the last three years said that they first learned of the property from their real estate agent. 31% of buyers learned about their home online or on a real estate website, 18% of buyers found their home by seeing a yard sign or driving by the home, 9% of buyers heard about the home they bought through a friend, while only 5% found their home in a newspaper.

While the internet is certainly being used more and more for home searches, it’s clear that newspaper advertising for homes for sale is becoming more of a money pit for Realtors with advertising costs increasing and the rate of return decreasing with fewer buyers even bothering to look at the ads.

"Our survey findings demonstrate that even as technology rapidly transforms the real estate industry and consumers increasingly turn to the Internet in their home search, the agent–client relationship continues to be in the forefront," said Sherry Chris, COO of Prudential CA/NV/TX Realty.

Added Chris: "Agents remain an essential source of information for consumers, but the relationship is changing as agents play more of a consulting role. Successful agents understand the importance of the Web to consumers and fully utilize technology available to them, not only to manage their business but to understand how to relate to and serve a progressively savvy client base."

Other survey results focused on what buyers were viewing online, what they liked about searching the Internet for homes and what they felt was the most important aspect of looking at homes online.

When buyers were asked to identify the most important areas of using a real estate website, the top three responses were: "looking at property photos" (89%), followed by "property search" (85%), and "mapping a property" (77%).

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