The Real Estate Press was an 80-page, black and white newsprint magazine listing homes for sale in Las Cruces, N.M., when the Armstrongs took the reins. Now the magazine has grown to more than 100 pages, has a color cover, and has listings for homes in most of southern New Mexico.

Oh, and there's one more major improvement. All the homes listed in the Real Estate Press are now listed on the World Wide Web. People shopping for homes in southern New Mexico can see color photos of numerous properties and actually search for their dream home based on number of bedrooms, price range, and various other criteria.

"Patrice and I had been reading a lot about the internet's potential and its rapid growth," Bill said. "We also knew that none of our competitors were willing to create a searchable database of realtor-listed homes, so we decided to be pioneers in this field."

But to claim new territory on the internet, Bill and Patrice needed help. Fortunately, they were friends with a couple who own their own web development company.

"C.C. Chamberlin and Barbara Copeland of Barking Dog Interactive sat down with us about a year ago and worked out an extensive plan to put every property from our printed magazine on the Web," Bill said.

The site took several months to develop and fine tune, at a cost of about $3,200. "We spent a lot of evenings and weekends with the people from Barking Dog, hammering out what would be helpful to the internet shopper, and, at the same time, what would help promote the individual real estate agent or broker."

Area realtors sign 12-month contracts to advertise home listings in the Real Estate Press. As an added bonus, all homes listed in the magazine are also placed on the web site free of charge.

"It's a situation where everyone wins," Bill said. "Our advertisers already know how expensive it is to list just a few properties on other, similar web sites. By giving them this free service, they are able to purchase more advertising space in the magazine, making more home listings available to the home shopper."

He says that results from their web site have been phenomenal. "We've had tens of thousands of hits from around the world, including Japan, Ecuador, England, Germany, and South Africa."

Several realtors say they've sold properties to out-of-town buyers based initially on the buyers' search of the Real Estate Press web site. Also, the site was recently awarded a "Pure Gold" award from Real Estate Library, based on design, execution, application, and relevance to the real estate community.

A key factor in the site's success stems from the ever changing property listings. About 80 new listings are added every two weeks. To update that many properties, four people at Real Estate Press divide up the duties, including converting photos to graphic images, adding text, and actually uploading new information to their internet service provider, ZiaNet .

And it doesn't look like things will slow down much in the near future. Real Estate Press is promoting its web site through local radio advertisements in the printed magazine, and listings on more than 150 internet search engines. They also promote their web site through brochures in a packet available from the local Chamber of Commerce.

"We're looking to expand our site by including real estate-related services such as mortgage lenders, title companies, home inspectors, and pool builders," Bill said. They also plan to add audio/visual clips on premium properties.

So, what does Bill recommend for others who think they want to market their service on the Web? "Spend the money to buy a domain name," he says. "No one wants to type in a long, meaningless name just to reach your site."

For the Real Estate Press, having a presence on the internet brings a form of job security and job satisfaction. "We prove every day that we are on the cutting edge of technology for our advertisers and readers," Bill said.

"We're already reaping the benefits of providing worldwide exposure for our advertisers by saving them money and boosting their sales calls, while offering a genuine convenience for people in search of homes and land."