The real estate auction Web sites BidSell.com and BidRent.com, as well as their Canadian counterparts BidSell.ca and BidRent.ca, have been put up for sale by Idea Labz, Inc., an Internet holding company based in Los Angeles.
Called “The eBay of real estate” by the New York Times, BidSell.com provides potential sellers an auction style forum in which to create a detailed property profile, list the property for sale, and receive bids from potential homebuyers. The service is free to both sellers and buyers, instead relying on the business model of generating revenue from advertising. Bobby Kalili, founder of Idea Labz and the two real estate auction platforms, subscribes to the notion that the most useful sites on the Internet are offered at no cost, and says the free-of-charge structure encourages widespread use of the site.

BidSell.com’s sister company BidRent.com operates under the same premise, offering investors and landlords a venue for posting rental properties, where potential tenants can bid on the monthly rental terms. Likewise, BidRent.com is a free service for users of the site – both property owners and their prospective tenants. The site operators claim their approach reduces vacancy rates by letting the market set the price, and noted that BidRent.com was ranked among the top 10 most useful real estate sites by MSN Money.
According to the ““Site For Sale” notice”:http://www.bidrent.com/ideabrokerz posted at each URL, BidSell.com and BidRent.com have been up and running since 2006 and as businesses, “are profitable.”
Real estate markets across the nation have suffered tremendous losses, particularly those regions with plummeting home prices, coupled with seemingly unrelenting foreclosures and rising REO inventories. BidSell.com has listing sub-sets dedicated to these local markets – such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, Orange County, San Diego, and Miami – as well as more than 20 other cities throughout the country. The sites offer residential single home, condominium, vacation, raw land, and commercial property listings.