I come from Australia, have lived in the UK, Germany and Switzerland and now live in the US.

What I find really interesting is just how badly real estate works online in the US. To quote Bart Simpson, it achieves what was previously thought physically impossible: it sucks and blows at the same time.

In Australia there are basically two online sites for both rentals and sales: realestate.com.au and domain.com. They have a lot of crossover and you could honestly find somewhere to live or buy just by looking at one. Estate agents have their own sites too but I really don't know why. Anything they post gets cross-posted to one of these two sites.

In the UK, it's basically the same story with findaproperty.co.uk and 1-2 others I'm now forgetting.

In Switzerland it's even more centralized where you will find everything on homegate.ch.

In the US? It's a disaster. There are so many sites and nothing centralized has really taken off. Even when you boil it down to one city.

As a buyer or renter I want to go to a handful of sites and find up-to-date listings. Ideally I'd like that site to tell me how to contact the agent, when the open house is (if there is one), the location (even if only down to cross-street) and photos of the property. Oh and the date it was listed (which should be specified by the site, not the person writing the listing).

Online real estate in the US reminds me a lot of recruitment in the UK (both are fragmented disasters).

Typically sites will charge for a listing and that listing will stay there until whoever posted it removes it. It's important to have the right incentives here. Charge the advertiser by the amount of time it's shown so brokers and agents don't keep up listings to act like honeypots (much like UK recruiters do with jobs, both fake and real).

I feel that some government regulation is required here to stamp down on the misrepresentation that is both possible and actual (in both markets).

Even the fact that brokers exist is a sign of market inefficiency. Why do I need an intermediary to find an apartment? In NYC (where I now live) using a broker is almost a must (if you want a non-crappy apartment, which is taking money out of the pocket of the renter and the landlord, in the form of a below market rent). In Manhattan these brokers typically charge 15% (of the annual rent). In Brooklyn and Queens it could well be 1 month or lease.

So when I see software that helps brokers and landlords find each other, I see a business model that is perpetuation a market efficiency that I believe is ultimately doomed.

Also, $50/month for 1 user but $100/month for unlimited? Big mistake. I seriously suggest you read Joel [1] on this one:

> Bad Idea #1: Site Licenses.

> The opposite of segmentation, really. I have certain competitors that do this: they charge small customers per-user but then there's a "unlimited" license at a fixed price. This is nutty, because you're giving the biggest price break precisely to the largest customers, the ones who would be willing to pay you the most money. Do you really want IBM to buy your software for their 400,000 employees and pay you $2000? Hmm?

> As soon as you have an "unlimited" price, you are instantly giving a gigantic gift of consumer surplus to the least price-sensitive customers who should have been the cash cows of your business.

Not that I have the answers on how to fix the situation in America but cities (possibly even states) could (and IMHO should) regulate rental practices. In the larger cities, it clearly seems to be required.

[1]: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...