Homescopes

The ongoing Active Rain vs. Move.com dustup, our very own ongoing soap opera saga, illustrates one fact above all else: the re.net is maturing. As the traditional players in real estate (finally) begin to appreciate the potential of emerging technology in real estate, it’s inevitable that more acquisitions will take place — hopefully [...]

Fresh on the heals of the Active Rain vs. Move.com dispute comes news of at least 2 — that’s right, count ‘em — TWO!! — more real estate-focussed social networking sites. The boys of Sellsius, refreshed after a cross country RV trip and then a fishing vacation, just put out a press release about an upcoming [...]

The re.net’s very own sock puppet steps in with his own inimitable brand of humo(u)r* and tells us what would have happened had Move.com had consummated the purchase of Active Rain. Jonathan Dalton, meanwhile, is looking for a buyer for his blog.  Rumo(u)r* has it he may thrown in some Captain Morgan as well. * Extra (u)’s [...]

For those who care about such things, the big recent news is, of course, the Move.com vs. Active Rain dustup.  While much of the commentary amongst Active Rainers has been supportive of their fearless leaders, there is also an underlying angst about the notion that while the content of Active Rain is provided by its [...]

Michael Arrington, founder and editor of tech blog TechCrunch, piles in on the Move.com vs. Active Rain dustup in a highly entertaining post entitled Highly Entertaining:  Realtors Suing Realtors. His summary of the controversy is well done. His grasp of the real estate industry, however, is not, as evidenced by the post title itself. Active Rain is not [...]

Exciting times indeed in real estate! Market woes, mortgage troubles, bankruptcies, lay-offs… Adding to the bad news is that Foxtons, the UK-based discount real estate brokerage, is laying off 350 employees from its New York and New Jersey operations. Some have predicted that this down market will weed out the non-traditional players [see comments [...]

Continuing yesterday’s description of new construction in Fair Oaks, we move east of San Benito to 15th Avenue, aka Palmer Lane, an interesting street in its own right: it starts its life at Marsh Avenue in the humble Fair Oaks neighborhood, executes a sharp southward turn, crosses Fair Oaks, shortly thereafter boldly changes its [...]

As a denizen of Menlo Park’s quaint Fair Oaks neighborhood, I try to keep an eye on the goings-on in the neighborhood. Lately there’s been a rash of new construction. Armed with a camera, and a determination to give Google Maps a test run, I thought I’d give an update. View Larger Map This [...]

Trulia, the online listing site which aggregates data from brokers and agents around the country, just turned two today.  In that short time, they’ve accomplished some fairly impressive feats: They built a home search site, getting listings Realtor-by-Realtor, broker-by-broker, without going through MLS’s. They formed partnerships with a number of leading regional and nation-wide brokerages, including Alain [...]

Market slowdown? What market slowdown? Despite much of the country’s real estate market being in trouble, despite the sub-prime mortgage mess, despite all the gloom and doom in the press, despite speculation that even almighty Google may be affected by the downturn, funding for Seattle-area startups continues strong. Zillow just landed $30M in funding, [...]