Bigger Pockets
The oldest, and most extensive of the sites mentioned here, Bigger Pockets is an educational resource for real estate investors. They have an outstanding blog, and seem to stay well clear of the sleaze that is so much a part of this industry online.

BiggerPockets® was created to help beginner and advanced investors network, make deals, and learn to invest in real estate. Learn about wholesaling, purchasing foreclosures, landlording, rehabbing, tax strategies, creative financing, land investing, commercial and residential real estate investing, and much more.

Rent Yield
If you’re planning to rent one, or many, of your properties I’d encourage you to take a good look at Rent Yield. It allows you to easily add and manage properties, tenants and vendors. It used to be a subscription based product, but now you can access it for free – something that I appreciate. It’s a simple tool, yet packs a lot of punch. It’s definitely worth trying to see whether it meets your particular needs.

Flipping Pad
The Flipping Pad is a community built around real estate investing. I wrote about them when they launched a few months ago, and though they’re still growing, they’re on the right track. Here you can network with other real estate investors, showcase your “pads” and take part in their discussion boards.

Bloodhound Blogs “Real Estate Weblogging 101” Book –

Simple Spark – Search for web applications that fit your needs. Here’s a search for “real estate” applications. Pretty good results actually.

RentYield – A rental property management tool for landlords and real estate investors. I’ve been playing around with it and it seems like it’s got some really good features.

Rent Me a Vacation – Vacation rentals, cabin rentals, apartments, Luxury villas and holiday rentals direct from the owners.

The “Pads” page allows registered users to post case studies, list a property and look for other investors to partner with. I’m particularly impressed with their filtering system, and I like how easy the list is to scan and find what I’m looking for. Once you’ve created a profile, you can start saving pads for later.

One thing that I haven’t been able to do with the FlippingPad yet is figure out how to get in touch with another user. I found a property that I liked, but was unable to get in touch with the user that put it online. So, the networking between users has a few things to iron out, I would expect to be able to flag myself for emails or private messages. I’d also like to be able to email a property to a friend from the property page, it seems like that should be done for better property visibility – whether you’re a registered user or not.

Lastly, there are some neat buttons and widgets that you can add to your website or blog. If you want to show your 10 most recently listed properties, with direct links back to FlippingPad, then this could work out for you. Put the code in your sidebar and you’re done.

This is an impressive first release for an underserved niche. I’m looking forward to seeing where the FlippingPad goes and how their network grows to become a full-bodied community.

August 29th, 2006 marks the day that Yahoo made their remodeled real estate site public. There are a lot of new features including current home valuations courtesy of Zillow, over 3 million real estate listings to surf through courtesy of Prudential Real Estate, interactive maps, and aerial views of homes. They also have a few values of famous homes for you to play with, probably to see what the site can do. I wonder when Google will come out with something to compete against this.

While doing research about the Real Estate Investment market in general as well as what investment software products are out there, I have come up with one question. What do our users really want and need?

There are the products out there like Zillow which simply gives comparable data. There is RealtyTrac.com which seems to have everything from a database of properties to comparables to a multitude of How To’s and links to various Financing mediums as well as a way to contact Agents in a users’ area. Then there is the property management and web site creation tools such as Shark Bait or our product PowerInvestorPro.

In conclusion, with all of these variations of Investor focused products going into the market, which ends up being useful to the investor? Maybe it is one small feature from all of them. Wouldn’t it be great to know exactly which ones they are make the perfect app? Unfortunately that is harder than it sounds… so we can all just keep striving for that.

Let us know what YOU would like to see in an investor or agent application.  What is it that you are looking for?

LoopNet’s Web site allows commercial real-estate agents to list properties that potential buyers can search. Unlike the residential real-estate market, which is organized by local multiple listing services or other central local databases of properties available for sale, there is no cooperative listing service in the commercial real-estate industry.

Newspaper publisher Tribune Co. on Monday said its online unit acquired Internet real-estate Web site ForSaleByOwner.com for undisclosed terms.

This is an interesting turn of events. A major media company buys up a portal for home sellers who want to go around the normal real estate industry to sell their home.

ForSaleByOwner charges sellers fees of $90 to $900 to list their homes, allowing homeowners to avoid paying the traditional 6 percent commission charged by real estate brokers. The Web site offers neighborhood information, online mortgage applications and other home-purchasing information, Tribune said. (via Chicago Tribune)

The big question is whether or not a large print media company has alienated some of its largest advertisers (real estate brokers) with an acquisition of a company that is designed to bypass them altogether.  Sure, they get 1.6 million visitors a month through this deal, but hopefully they haven’t ruined some relationships in the process.

The new website replaces Homestore.com, HomeBuilder.com, and RentNet.com. Which means that Homestore is trying to make a strong move (no pun intended) into a market that is quickly becoming crowded. The domain name is strong, easy to remember and proves that they are very serious about their rebranding efforts.

Up to this point I think everything is going well, however I do see some problems.  Homestore is closely aligned with Realtor.com, so there won’t be any FSBO listings in the results. The continued refusal of big sites like Move/Realtor.com to embrace all types of home sellers and buyers keeps them on the outside.

What the end buyer is looking for is a FULL list of properties available to buy.  They don’t care that Realtor is trying to protect real estate agents and brokers, they just want what’s best for themselves as a buyer.

The amazing thing about the real estate industry online is the continued fractioning of the market between realtors and everyone else.  Other real estate search engines like Trulia and Propsmart have an easy time getting ahold of FSBO properties, but difficulties trying to get normal MLS properties in their listings.  The first website that can provide both to the end consumer will be the big winner.