Beeyoot, A New UAE Real Estate Property Listing Portal

BeeyootBeeyoot is a new real estate listings website for the UAE, that was just launched into public beta, and which aims to connect property sellers directly to buyers and renters.

With the current downturn in the real estate market in the country, you’d think this wouldn’t really be best of times to launch a new real estate portal; but Beeyoot believes otherwise and are sure that their model putting property owners and buyers or sellers directly in touch with each other, without any intermediaries, creates room for a new momentum in the distressed real estate industry.

Beeyoot’s platform aims to help buyers and renters save on property searching costs by providing them with a free service, while enabling sellers or landlords to list their properties for a modest fee (AED 50 / USD $15 per month for the basic package), with the benefit of dealing with buyers and renters directly.

More advanced packages for users who want their properties featured more prominently and investors who have multiple properties are also available.

Beeyoot

The interface was designed to be simple and usable, in the same time providing users with quite a rich set of functionalities and filters to find what they’re looking for.

The portal’s services are currently exclusive to the UAE market, however they are planning to franchise the platform to other GCC countries.

The service is currently in beta, and is for a limited time allowing free basic property listings.

Beeyoot also has a blog called ‘The Glasshouse’ which will be featuring relevant information articles about the real estate in the UAE by industry specialists.

meOwns Launch New Version, Redesign & More Features

meOwnsmeOwns, the social web application that enables users to publish personal collections of the different things they own, that was previously reviewed here, just launched the new version of their service, with a new design and a set of new features and enhancements.

The new layout and design, brings increased usability throughout the website and its different sections and functionalities, looks a lot nicer, and just feels more organized.

meOwns screenshot

But the new version doesn’t stop at the aesthetics, it brings a number of interesting additions as well:

  • More options to navigate the website, by going through the lists of recently added stuff; recently wished for items; hot, beloved or interesting stuff; and the enhanced search and tagging systems.
  • Users can now also rate items they own or that other people own.

Other features that we should be seeing on the website soon are:

  • The listing of related and similar items that you might be interested in on item pages.
  • Knowing who else owns a certain item that you own or someone else owns; or who wishes to get that item.
  • Integration of microformats.

# meOwns

meOwns, A Social Tool To Publish Collections Of What You Own

meOwnsmeOwns is a new web application that helps people complete another bit of their public personal profile on their blogs, social networks and other personal web pages by publishing personal collections of things they own.

The idea behind the service is that you might not be able to tell what kind of person someone is just by the way they look, but that you can get a better idea by knowing what they own.

As a user you can use the service to build and maintain collections of the items you own, create a personal wish list or import one you already  have on Amazon, as well as add items from other people’s collections and wish lists to your own.

It’s also possible to get in contact with other users directly through the site, by sending them a message and choosing which of your contact details you’d like share with them for the reply (Email, Yahoo ID or Windows Live ID).

The meOwns blog talks about the possibility of launching a garage sale for items you want to sell, as well as the ability to request to buy items from other people. It seems these features still haven’t been officially rolled out, but they sound really neat. It’ll be interesting to see how the whole buying/selling/price details will be handled.

meOwns allows users to integrate many of the service’s basic functionalities into their personal blogs and websites through a customizable widget, which lets them directly maintain their collections and items, and also lets other users interact with it and the items in it. The widget is also available as a facebook application that can be added to the user’s profile.

meOwns screenshot

Items from other users can be found through popular tags, popular types of items, or searched for using the quick or advanced search options. You can also check out other user’s pages and see what collections and items they own by searching for them or browsing the top users list.

meOwns was launched from Alexandria, Egypt by eSpace Technologies.

# meOwns

MSN Arabia Partners With Propertyfinder For Real Estate Listings

Propertyfinder.ae, the popular UAE real estate web portal, and MSN Arabia have announced a new deal today, maximizing propertyfinder.ae’s exposure for real estate agents using their service and their listed properties.

The deal gives Propertyfinder.ae access to MSN Arabia’s large user base, a potential regional audience of more than 10 million unique visitors a month.

On the other hand, the added-value for MSN Arabia is the ability to offer their visitors quality real estate listings, to satisfy the demand for that kind of information by users, as property markets boom throughout the Arab region.

Propertyfinder - MSN ArabiaMSN Arabia is the only network with an international presence covering the Arab region, with a dual-language interface catering to all Arabic and English speakers in the MENA region. MSN Arabia is managed by LINKonLINE, a subsidiary of Orascom’s LINKdotNET.

Propertyfinder.ae specialises in real estate and investment in Dubai and offers agents and developers access to a potential global audience of 9 million unique visitors. Propertyfinder.ae is a subsidiary of REA Group and forms part of the global online real estate advertising company.

# MSN Arabia, Propertyfinder.ae

# Source: BI-ME