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Don't want the fuss and muss of setting up your own community Intranet? Then try out a "shrink wrapped" Web service.

Internet e-commerce has lured home buyers and closed sales. Now, after-the-sale electronic services are becoming just as important. Many home buyers want electronic links that tie them to the community where they bought their home.

The answer for Pathway Communities of Peachtree City, Ga., was to create a customized Intranet site for home buyers. A private high-speed network links neighbors to local school information, community club information, local businesses, and each other. Resident-only access provides privacy as well as neighborliness.

"Buyers are longing for a way to get to know the people around them. Secure community Intranet sites help them build connection," says Elliott Stotler, vice president of sales and marketing for Pathway Communities. "Today's buyers are sophisticated, but they are also looking for communities that offer a difference. A human element. This certainly sets us apart from other neighborhoods."

The Intranet pilot program was so successful that it helped launch a community Intranet Web service called Neighborware, which is now available to builders and developers nationwide. The program and service lets builders, regardless of the size of their community, offer a neighborhood or community Intranet site for residents.

Initially developed for Pathway's newest community, 1,400-acre SummerGrove in Newnan, Ga., Neighborware is the brainchild of Broward & Associates/Community Development Technology of Peachtree City, and McRae Communications of Fayetteville, Ga. The comprehensive resident-restricted site lets builders offer home buyers online/ real-time listings of current community activities, resident directories, local school activities, easy-to-search-for club memberships and schedules, parent-teacher conferences, classified advertising - even resident chat rooms.

Builders can customize their individual Intranet site to reflect the marketing and positioning of the community. "Neighborware includes graphic customizations so that it harmonizes with other print and electronic media," says Chase Broward, president of Broward & Associates. "It also offers turn-key hosting and support, and on-site training for the builder/developer and eventually a homeowners' association administrator." On-site training allows the local homeowners' representative to feel more "in touch with the product," Broward says.

Is this just another fancy e-mail system? It's much more, according to Stotler. 'Once customized for a site and community, it results in the site and service being part of the community amenities. People are proud to talk about it," he says. "They get hooked, and they tell all their friends about it." The program allows for added branding exposure and publicity mileage. The intranet sites can have the same name as the community or village: RollingHills.com or Oceanview estates.com , for example. Simple steps like this will make buyers eager to use it, says Broward.

"Following the success at SummerGrove, this is now a shrink-wrapped version for any size community," says Broward. Builders who are not prewiring entire communities for high speed Internet access will still be able to offer the service.

As BUILDER goes to press, Neighborware is being tailored for possible use in U.S. Home's communities for active adults, as well as at the development of Daniel Island in Charleston, S.C. - B.E.

For more on Pathway Communities, SummerGrove, or McRae Communications, see BUILDER Online at www.builder.hw.net/ monthly/