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To: Olu Emuleomo who wrote (106930)	8/4/2000 11:14:15 AM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

Good link. >Tom Gardner: If you could invest $5,000 split between any two of these companies -- Amazon, Yahoo!, or eBay -- which two would it be? TMF Parlay: Yahoo! and eBay. I agree! I think this latest move by eBay makes great business sense, and I've never been a eBay fan. Mainly because I originally saw it as a flea market, and I was obviously wrong! If this works, and later does start charging real estate commissions, it could be huge! Btw Have you checked out Nuan and Spwx lately? >PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug 3 (Reuters) - The popular online auction service EBay Inc. <EBAY.O> on Thursday added houses, land and commercial real estate to the long list of things people can buy and sell on its site. The company launched eBay Real Estate, a new section of its site devoted to houses and other property. It is the latest in a series of new categories eBay has introduced covering high-ticket items. Once known as an online flea market for trading beanie babies and other inexpensive collectibles, eBay now has a popular site for cars and another one focused on small business equipment. A spokesman for the company said it was fair to say that the real estate site will now represent the highest-ticket purchases on eBay. However, the company is not charging a commission on real estate sales. People listing homes and other property for sale will only have to pay a flat $50 listing fee, at least for the time being. "I'm sure we'll explore that sometime down the road," the eBay spokesman responded when asked about a possible commission on home sales. Even before the site launch on Thursday, people had already been using eBay to buy property, sometimes sight unseen. The company said it expects an online auction format could be popular for buying and selling time shares, commercial real estate and land for investment purposes. Although the sales will be initiated and completed online, buyers and sellers are free to meet and view the property offline. Car sellers on eBay frequently use the site to make introductions but then arrange an in-person meeting before sealing the deal. By launching a real estate specific site, eBay hopes to make it easier for people to locate other auctions, and to offer them some of the other real estate services. Ebay Real Estate was launched through a partnership with the online real estate brokerage zipRealty.com, which will provide some related services like licensed brokers, required by some state laws to oversee real estate transfers. The licensed broker requirement is just one of several potential complexities in online real estate auctions. Payment could be another, and eBay said it had not yet decided on whether to offer additional features to cover mortgages and financing. At least for the time being, the home auctions will work essentially like the other auctions arranged through eBay, in which all bids are non-binding until payment is made. 20:35 08-03-00