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Open house guide, where are you?
I cannot seem to find an online Open House guide that comprehensively taps a national database of houses to visit on Saturday and Sunday (throw in broker tour stuff, too, OK?).
I like the UI on OpenHouse.com but it is thin on the data side. A couple of years ago, Realogy purchased the URL and has been slowly filling it out with listings.
Since newspapers have had a print monopoly on this important consumer feature for decades, it seems like Classified Ventures would be perfectly suited to offer this. Of course, most local newspapers offer the OH feature.
I am sure the Zillowites are on this, or maybe the Trulia boys who have perfected the art of legally scraping listings.
Over the years, I have gotten no less than 30 business plans from start-ups (FYI: the biz plans are peaking again, almost comparable to 2000) offering online open house guides. Of course, the challenge isn’t in building the technology application, it is in obtaining the data — too many sources. And what are the economics?
Help me out. What’s out there? Any cool open house feature sites, new tricks, etc.?
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