Case Study

Case 12

The world's largest online auction firm, eBay, best known for offering antiques and collectibles such as baseball cards and Pez dispensers, has been expanding to include larger items such as computers and automobiles. With its acquisition of HomesDirect.com, eBay has made a major move into an even larger item--- real estate in the form of auctioning foreclosed homes on the internet. While eBay had already dabbled in real estate, selling dozen or so properties per day, HomesDirect.com sells several hundred per day and well over 100,000 per year. Traditional real estate firms are still skeptical about the future growth prospects for online real estate marketing channels. They argue that most potential buyers still need the face-to-face help of skilled real estate professionals to deal with the complexities of real estate transactions.

Question:

Would you buy a home over the internet from eBay's HomesDirect.com division? Why or why not? Discuss the advantages as well as the limitations of the Internet as a marketing channel for real estate.