New Real Estate Site: ResidentialNYC.com. DOA?

Add yet another local real estate search tool to the ever-growing list: ResidentialNYC.com.  The site, funded by the Real Estate Board Of New York, launches today. The trade group will spend $300,000 promoting the site over the next two months, reports NewYorkBusiness.com. And from what we can see, that will be money down the drain.

Why? Because the only reason for potential real estate buyers, sellers, renters or lessors to use a new site is because it offers something they can't find on the countless others. And, right now, ResidentialNYC.com offers even less than the competition: Homebuyers can only "view roughly half the properties for sale in Manhattan along with a smaller chunk of the properties available in the other boroughs." That's because some of the biggest brokerages, including Corcoran Group and Prudential Douglas Elliman, aren't sharing their listings.

We're not clear about the nature of the Corcoran/Prudential boycott (which we imagine is presumably self-interested desire of the agencies not to allow anything like a multiple-listing-service to be created).  If the big brokerages continue the boycott, ResidentialNYC.com is a non-starter.  If a deal can be worked out, however, this will be big blow for the New York Times (NYT), which currently dominates the local listings market online. NewYorkBusiness