Download or read book Electronic Real Estate in Europe written by Jan-Philip von Gottberg and published by diplom.de. This book was released on 2008-12-22 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: The Internet as a communication medium is integrated in almost every process of today s business. Barely one company can ignore the Internet technology. Hence, it is not astonishing that nowadays the Internet has a great impact on real estate transactions. The question that arises is whether the real estate business is ready for this technology or not. This affects the company side as well as the customer side. Eventually both sides have to be familiar with the technology to accomplish the conclusion of the contract. Although many businesses still work the traditional way, which means the physical trade, the evolution obtains everyone. Still many companies deal their real estate avoiding the Internet. However the reality shows a different picture. More and more people get used to the Internet. Roughly everything is marketable over the Internet, so now people select the Internet likewise for selling or buying online or simply just to get a picture of the market. Hence, the companies have to catch up and adapt to the market change. The idea of integrating the Internet into real estate business has an important background: it is imperative to increase the number of customers. Technologies like Internet help for instance smaller companies to reach customers all around the globe. An opportunity like this was unimaginable a few years ago. In detail it means that a real estate company needs at most premises an own or public server and is able to create a business on an entire virtual platform. Increasing the number of customers and decreasing the costs through saving time and effort has a huge impact on the business development. Although the online real estate industry has not reached an optimum level in Europe, several countries are pushing the development forward. Despite all this the process starts slowly. The change from a face-to-face business to a virtual commerce causes different dilemmas. Beside technical issues the whole selling and buying process has to be overworked and this costs vastly money and time. The change of business is influenced by economic resources, technological progress and meeting the customer s expectations. Germany and the United Kingdom both show very active real estate markets. Given a comparative, high and dense population, the total volume of real estate transactions is fairly high. Additionally the residential properties are interesting for both sides and hence the trade among each other is [...]