DotHomes real-estate search site makes U.S. debut

Another week, another real-estate search site. DotHomes has gone live in the United Kingdom and South Africa, and it is now launching in the United States.

(Credit: DotHomes)

The free site offers short descriptions of properties to buy or rent, then links to agent sites. Looks fairly standard, except it also offers heat maps of local prices and enables video uploads for home sellers who think photos just don't do their home justice.

The DotHomes launch and the nationwide launch of the Roost home-buying site last week would seem to bolster the premise of an article in The New York Times finding that real-estate sites are booming despite the drop in home sales.

As Spencer Rascoff, chief financial officer at Zillow.com, put it: "In a down market, buyers, sellers, and agents need more tools."

[michaelo1966]

Combining the worst of dot-com and homes

Couldn't resist w/ a dumb name like this. Should've been called bubblemasher.com or something like that: a mashup of dot-com madness and the housing bubble, all wrapped up into one more site for people to list their homes at prices nobody will think about paying. Makes me yearn for the days of times past when things like calling card ponzi schemes were about as bad as it got.