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What if home buyers and sellers could know instantly what the top real estate agents in their area know?

The type of information that now passes in gossip between busy agents every day -- which homes sparked bidding wars, how long others sat on the market, how many buyers are out there -- will soon be offered to the general public through a new podcasting service devised by Toronto Beaches-area real estate agent Rick DeClute and website developer Geoff Jordan.

The duo recently launched tuneinrealestate.com, a free service that will let subscribers listen to continuously updated audio clips by agents offering micro-level information on sales in local neighbourhoods across Canada and, eventually, the United States and beyond.

The idea struck Mr. DeClute last year, when he was racking his brains for ways to use the rapidly growing podcast medium for advertising.

"I bumped into an ex-client at Starbucks who was reading the real estate report in the paper. He looked up and said, 'What's happening in the market?' "

The newspaper report the man was reading, based on monthly Greater Toronto Area figures from the Toronto Real Estate Board, was not only too general to be of much use to him, but wasn't up-to-the-minute, Mr. DeClute realized.

He was able to tell him that, although the overall regional market was officially fairly flat, a bidding war had broken out the night before over a small, three-bedroom semi-detached house in the Beaches. So great was the hunger for this modest home priced in the mid $400,000s that 12 rival bids were received, and it sold for $80,000 over the asking price.

"And that meant there were still 11 interested buyers out there," Mr. DeClute added.

Anyone thinking about buying or selling a similar house would have been very interested in that local information, but would not have been able to find it on websites or in the papers, he said.

Podcasting is a subscription-based delivery system for audio clips tailored to a consumer's specific requirements. On TuneInRealEstate.com, people can download an automatic feed that updates whenever a new recording is added, and listen to the clips at their leisure on an MP3 player or computer.

The podcasts will enable people to research market conditions in a local area quickly and easily without having to talk directly with an agent and make a commitment to work with them.

"People are seeking real estate information on the Internet like crazy," Mr. DeClute said. "It's anonymous and there's no commitment. They can access it whenever they want without registering with an agent."

But the service will be good for agents too, Mr. DeClute said. If they make their reports timely and relevant, it will be a great way for them to raise their profiles and attract buyers to their websites.

"With podcasting, you're talking to people who want to hear your message," explained Mr. Jordan, who runs his own Web development company, Rubber Tincan Interactive.

Since the pair launched the website a few weeks ago, 130 real estate agents have signed up to do podcasts but only about 40 have got the hang of it so far. It involves taping short talks on a toll-free telephone number.

Agents who don't update frequently will be replaced by others who will, Mr. DeClute says. And those who simply regurgitate general market information available elsewhere won't stay on the service either.

"Some are dubbing it their market minute," he says. "It has to be specific information that people can't pick up from anything that's being sent to them."