These sites are the natural Internet extensions of a number of print publications. In most cases they include news feeds. The e-commerce side of these information portals, other than subscription sales or through advertising banners, is through classified listings. The common feature of these sites and others like them is that transactions are not carried out through the site. The property auction sites have a variety of levels of descriptive detail available.
Most sites are careful to make bidders aware of the risks involved.
It is difficult to find evidence of any significant number of transactions taking place as yet. Oral auction houses won t let a seller put a reserve on a property that is below a certain value. That opens up the auction option to smaller producers who want to participate but don t want to risk leaving a lot of money on the table. The data sites vary from those serving specific niche markets to those with much broader focus. Users can access and search the database of filed permits, but only subscribers can retrieve the most current information.