FARGO - A software company here tracks thousands of real estate property listings for sale in 28 states, Guam and Venezuela.

Financial Business Systems Inc. was started by Paul Wurzer in 1978. His son, Michael, worked for the company during high school and college, and joined the business as chief executive officer in 1997, after working as an attorney in Los Angeles and Minneapolis.

"I was interested in it and wanted to get back to Fargo," he said. "I guess Fargo just gets in your blood and you want to come back home."

Until then, FBS was in the business of printing catalogs with real estate listings for Multiple Listing Services across the country.

It was time to retool and offer the service over the Internet, Wurzer said.

He and his staff created flexmls online, an open-browser system that does everything from listing properties and prices to showing them on detailed maps.

Last year, real estate agents using flexmls software reported 160,322 property sales worth $28.1 billion, Wurzer said.

The system offers a private intranet to members of each multiple listing service, he said. "It's kind of like a private communications system for them," he said.

In 1999, 5,000 real estate agents were listed in FBS multiple-listing catalogs. Today, 30,380 agents are listed online, representing 600 percent growth, Wurzer said, with 4,000 new agents added in the past five months.

"No matter where you are, you can go online and do business," said Dave Lanpher, president of the Fargo-Moorhead Area Association of Realtors. "Wherever I'm at, I have access to the information. We just really like the system."

In addition to listing properties for sale, the program offers tools for creating sales presentations for buyers and sellers, Wurzer said.

Real estate agents can tell the system what type of property a client is looking for, using an automatic e-mail feature, Wurzer said.

Flexmls automatically keeps both the agent and customer up to date on new listings that come onto the market, he said.

"We basically are the technology provider," Wurzer said.

About half of his clients continue to use MLS listing catalogs, which are printed at FBS' Fargo headquarters.

"When we started this business, it was all print," Wurzer said. "Now the focus is 75 percent software and 25 percent print."

FBS once employed about 40 workers, many in its former offset print shop. Today, the company has 29 employees.

Five work the company's support desk answering client questions, Wurzer said. Nine programmers design company software. Four are employed in sales.

Four employees are needed to operate the new digital print shop. Its six virtual presses produce 2 million pages per month, said Kevin Tranby, the print shop production manager.

The remaining employees represent management and support personnel.

Employees recently formed an employee stock ownership plan and purchased 100 percent of company stock from his father, Wurzer said.

"So now it's a 100 percent employee-owned company," he said.