Charlotte - Online Real Estate Empire

I was driving around town today and saw this sign at the bottom of an exit of I-77 and Morehead. I thought this was interesting. Is House.com going to copy the RealEstate.com business model and start trying to convert some of their own leads into sales? A friend of mine, who's in the industry as well, tipped me off recently that House.com had moved their operations from NY to Charlotte. So, seeing the sign on the side of the road wasn't too surprising. But, it did make me wonder about House's business model, and about Charlotte in general. Charlotte is quietly becoming the mecca for online real estate. Now, there's no way that it can compete with the prowess of Emeryville, Seattle, or the Valley. But, just take a look at which companies call Charlotte home.

• RealEstate.com
• House.com
• Realty.com
• iHomes.com
• LendingTree
• Bank of America
• Wachovia
• Lowes

In addition to LendingTree and RealEstate.com, I also believe that IAC has parts of GetSmart.com, Domania, and iNest here. If not in total, some representation of these three can be found in Charlotte. I also was informed recently that the new CEO of NewHomes.com was pulled from Charlotte to their Florida home office.

I was curious about what House.com was up to. So, I shot an email out to Dan Parisi - no reply. (He rarely does). Then, I figured I would call the 800 # listed on the sign. After asking a few questions to the customer service rep I was informed that their plans for opening a brokerage are on hold, and they are focusing on obtaining more agent relationships for their lead network. That's cool. Sticking to your core biz strategy is never a wrong move.

But, with all of us in the same town, we should all get together for a drink and chat. It would make for a fun game of trying to find-more-about-your-competitor-than-they-can-find-out-about-you.

So, Dan, Eric, Gary, Michael, Doug... when's the first pow-wow?