Potential home buyers, cruising the streets in search of for-sale signs, can now determine the price of the home, assess interest rates, and start securing a loan right from the sidewalk outside the building, thanks to wireless access to Countrywide Home Loans network.

Countrywide, a 31-year-old residential finance and lending institution with more than 2.6 million customers nationwide, created its ValueFinder service so home buyers could use a Wireless Application Protocol-enabled device to determine the last purchase price of a piece of property, determine its recent appraised value, retrieve basic property information, and even start the loan process. Countrywide started the free service to make it easier for its customers to reach the company, says Richard Jones, chief technology officer of the E-business division of Countrywide. "We're attracting people to Countrywide through whatever means possible," Jones says. "The ultimate issue is then, how do we take raw leads and convert that into business?"

Countrywide partnered with AT&T for access service and utilizes a Phone.com Gateway application, but it created the wireless access links to its realty-assessment network in-house with two developers and six months of work, Jones says.

The next step in Countrywide's wireless strategy is to gather customer information for real estate agents to follow up on, and to offer instant refinancing on loans based on market fluctuations. However, a face-to-face meeting with loan officers is required before loan approval is final.