With the announcement yesterday that Doug Caffey, founder of GotAcres.com sold the 15,000th parcel of land in eBay Real Estate's land marketplace, questions were raised - how well is eBay Real Estate really doing?

According to an eBay spokesperson, eBay categorizes property sales four ways:

1. Residential - includes new homes, foreclosed homes, and resale homes
2. Timeshares
3. Parcels
4. Commercial real estate

"It's important to note," said the spokesperson, "that homes were selling at eBay before we set up eBay Real Estate. When we noticed that homes were selling, we decided to create a special section devoted to all types of real estate."

What makes eBay's announcement about the parcel sales reaching a watermark of 15,000 noteworthy is that the Parcel area is only two months old, which indicates a lot of traction in the sector. Are existing homes doing as well?

Getting an exact number by property category is a little trickier, says the spokesperson. First, property sales are divided into two types of listings - ads and auctions, and some properties may appear in both areas. Second, listings can be divided into 30-day, 60-day, or 90-day which also makes it tougher to nail down sales figures.

"What we can say is that through all four categories," said the spokesperson, "a property is sold every 34 minutes on eBay." That's roughly 60,000 homes a year, less the parcels."

Editor's note: An alert reader notes that two homes per hour sold X 24 hours/day X 365 days/year = 17,520 properties/year.

Why the boom in land sales compared to other categories? eBay's strength is consumer to consumer. "Most of the parcels are consumer to consumer," explained the spokesperson.

eBay Real Estate was formed in 2000. In August 2001, eBay announced the acquisition of HomesDirect, an auction facilitator for properties. Timeshares were added in January, 2002. In May, 2002, the site added New Homes through its partnership with Builder Homesites, a cooperative of some of the nation's largest builders. New homes also marks the companies venture into business to consumer sales. In the new home category, consumers can work directly with builders or their agents.

In eBay's residential area, there are currently 13,000 properties for sale, including over 10,000 new homes, and over 400 resale homes.

Published: August 14, 2002

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