Electronic Real Estate in Europe

Master's Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Computer Science - Commercial Information Technology, grade: Merit, University of Westminster, course: Business Administration, language: English, abstract: Over the last 15 years, the Internet industry has developed at the double. Hence, it is hardly surprising that the advancement of Internet caught up with the real estate industry. Many critics have argued that the Internet is not incorporated yet into the daily business of the real estate industry. Moreover, these critics state that the potential is not exploited enough and many promises are unused. The analysis of the progress of two different countries in Europe may be valuable to provide a summary concerning the evolution of the digital environment in the real estate industry. The purpose of this report is to present the advancement and progress of the online real estate markets in Germany and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, it is the aim to contrast the consistencies and disparities. Finally, the different approaches of Germany and the United Kingdom will be highlighted and evaluated. In order to secure an adequate methodology being used, a comparative case study is integrated and particular elements are shown and contrasted to form a picture of the situation of the online real estate market. The results indicate the advancement of the German online real estate market. Although the online real estate industry was going fine over the last years, a definite lack of usability and information aspects is in plain view. Crucial website elements were left out all or part on certain online real estate homepages. Due to this characteristic the online advancement in Germany can be defined as underdeveloped. Moreover, the real estate market has stagnated over the last years regarding the price development. This fact is one of the reasons Internet and real estate is not attached the importance that it is intended to be. In comparison, the United Kingdom shows strongly more advancement in the last years and due to that the level of Internet connected to real estate industry is fairly high. Additionally, the prices of real estate increased over the last years and a market turnaround is not foreseen yet. Consequently, it is attached more value to the Internet technology and the development is very much supported by the real estate companies.