Last week LotandHome.com launched a new listing site focused on new homes and lots, but with a twist. Anyone can register with the site and get a “Rebate Voucher.” Bring the voucher to the builder and get a “cash back equaling 1% of the purchase price”. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea (who doesn’t like $1k coupons ).
From the Press Release:
“Completely non-competitive LotandHome offers benefits to the buyer, the homebuilder and the real estate agent. Homes sold through LotandHome.com carry a three percent commission from the participating builders. The new homebuyer receives a 1% cash rebate, 1% goes into national advertising for the website and 1% is allocated toward operational expenses and profits.”

A new real estate listing site called BeatYouThere.com launched yesterday (inman) and it’s adding a social twist. BeatYouThere users can search for other users (buyers, sellers, investors, etc), rate other users, comment on properties (and users), and connect with friends. It’s a novel idea, however while navigating the site I found some of the social aspects/comments/etc buried and the other social features haven’t officially launched yet (marked coming soon).

Another StreetView Launch:
Today, RealEstate.com launches property searches with integrated StreetView (from Inman).

Choices:
If you are developing a Real Estate 2.0 site then you have a hard choice ahead. Do you integrate Google’s StreetView or Microsoft’s Birds EyeView? Hey, at least we have choices.

Product Launches:
Last week, Trulia was the first to announced the integration of Google’s Street View (FOREM). Today, DotHomes also announces the integration of Google’s Street View (see below).

“DotHomes.com (DotHomes), the real estate search engine, today announced that it has implemented Google’s Street View to its US listings. This application adds to the already extensive list of real estate search functions including videos, maps, and aerial views, which home buyers can use to facilitate their real estate search. The “Street” button can be found below each individual property listing alongside other search functions such as Save, Add Video, Aerial and Map.” -Release

Question: What are you guys doing? We haven’t heard much from eppraisal/realtythoughts in a while.

Answer: Other than visiting real estate Agents across the U.S., we have been working on tweaking our technology and getting ready for the launch of hoodeo (www.hoodeo.com).

Question: Hold up, what’s hoodeo?

Answer: Right now, I can’t say much other than it uses the eppraisal engine in a very unique way. It is surprisingly simple and some would call it “revolutionary”.

Note, the splash page is up and we will be announcing updates over the next few weeks.