"You need to be more techno savvy than average to get these people," said Laurie Moore-Moore (yes, that's really her name), founder of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. "As wealth goes up, so does technology use."

She mentioned research showing that those who make $250,000 a year or more spend an average of 27 hours or more online every week.

Luxury homes marketed online must have very upscale ads, with professional photography, expensive-looking typography and text that targets the lifestyles of the buyers.

Thanks to the Internet, foreign buyers can easily search out luxury properties, and they're doing so, said George Harvey, a Realtor in the pricey resort destination of Telluride, Colo.

"Who's got the money is the big question," Harvey said. "Seventy-five percent of the world's wealth is held outside the U.S. Foreigners look to the U.S. for the stability of our economy."

That might sound odd to Americans who've seen their house and stock prices take a drubbing recently. But our turmoil pales in comparison to what's happened in countries where political instability has lead to runaway inflation and the collapse of the local currency. Argentina in 2001-02 comes to mind.

Harvey told an interesting story about a Russian buyer who made a killing in the fertilizer business. Last winter that Russian paid $11 million -- cash -- for a house in Aspen, Colo. The next week he found another Aspen house he liked better, so he bought it, too. For $37 million. In cash.

Then there's the London hedge-fund manager who paid $175 million last year for a Colorado ranch. Because of the British pound's strength against the dollar, the Londoner essentially paid half price, Harvey pointed out.

"There are a lot of people in the world who have created wealth, and they're looking to the U.S. because of stability and panache," Harvey said.

The top six countries of origin of international buyers are, in order: Canada, United Kingdom, Mexico, China, India and Germany, according to a recent National Association of Realtors study. Three quarters of them buy a single-family home. Or homes.

As of Sunday, the Seattle metro area was well-stocked with luxury homes for sale. There were 1,657 of them with a median price of $1,109,276, an Institute of Luxury Home Marketing report revealed.

The average days on market are 113 in Seattle, well below Miami, where the median-priced luxury home is almost twice as expensive and takes nearly twice as long -- an average 220 days -- to sell. The New York City area has the highest median luxury home price at $3,646,634, but buyers get a lot for their money. The median square feet of those luxury digs is 4,557, compared with 3,228 in Seattle.