Sellsius Real Estate Classifieds Launches

When we first stuck our toe into the blog waters back in October of 2005, the Real Estate blogging community was a bit sparse. We humbly tried to add our voice and help raise a community. It wasn't much later, however, that we discovered some New Yorkers at a blog called Sellsius that outclassed us on every dimension in the blogosphere. Prolific and creative and witty and opinionated. Since then, we've met Rudy and Joe and prodded numerous times, "What the hell is Sellsius actually going to do?" Well today the world (finally) knows.

SellsiusRealEstate.com launches today as the Enhanced Real Estate Classifieds site.

Joe and Rudy have been building this project for a long time. In that time a TON of competition has emerged. But Sellsius has one thing going for them that the others don't: These guys know real estate. In this hyper-competitive space, that could be the x-factor that pays off. Here's why:

Current generic classifieds sites include Craigslist, Oodle, Vast, among many others. Zillow and Trulia have their property listings too of course. This group represents well over $100 million in venture capital and a truly impressive passle of entrepreneurs. (For evidence of the latter, see Vast founder Naval Ravikant's magnificent VentureHacks blog.) Of that bunch, only Trulia is really usable for real estate searching. Craigslist is is optimal for apartments and other random projects, but it's second rate for real estate purchases.

Conventional Silicon Valley wisdom says build the most massive database first and the people and their needs will follow. For a house hunt, though, that approach may not solve my problem. When I search for homes for sale in say, Sunnyvale, California, I do NOT want to see 34,000 properties with the "best match" being in San Jose. Ugh.

So despite all the rivers of money flowing into these firms, there is clearly opportunity for Sellsius.

The "Enhanced" part of Sellsius' classifieds is that they have developed not generically for the world nor just for homes for sale, but for the real estate ecosphere. Sellsius brings understanding of all the participants, from architects, to appraisers, to mold removal that you can't find in any of the existing sites. You might be able to find a mold guy on Craigslist, but who knows what you might come up with. The "Niche Search" feature on Sellsius has real promise.

The biggest hurdle for Sellsius will be filling the database. They've come to market with a compelling framework, but it's still a bit empty. The conventional wisdom became convention for a reason. If users try it and find nothing there, they may not come back. Sellsius charges a fee so the hurdle is even higher than other sites. The firm is riding on the boundless energy and massive personal network of Joe and Rudy, if anyone has the reach to build their advertisers to a critical mass, these guys do. (Remember Craigslist was empty once too...) But that's the key, guys. Maybe you can team with a Vast and put a decent front-end on their big list of properties.

How ever you do it, I'm looking forward to seeing the project grow and morph and solve some real problems for people.