Zolve.com - Taking the Real Estate by Storm

Zolve is a new social network developed for those in the real estate industry. The self funded, Baghdad based site, allows real estate professionals (brokers, title insurance agents, global mobility agents, inspectors, etc. ) from all across the country to create profiles and connect, exchanging referrals. Created by a former broker now serving in Iraq, Zolve is moving away from sites like Zillow and Redfin, bringing the real estate industry back directly to the brokers. Each Zolve member can find other members in their sphere of influence as pinpointed on a Google Map. Exchanging referrals can get brokers a robust 30 percent of the commission. Members can up their cred and earn eBay type ratings through feedback scores from customers and other brokers and blogging on their profiles. As this site involves a fair amount of profit for everyone involved, membership fees start at $395, and will run a cool $995 afterwards. As the cost should be covered by merely one commission fee earned on site, Zolve may become quite popular amongst commission loving brokers. So far 2,200 have signed up.

"Zolve allows real estate professionals to be found online and to create a good brand for themselves"

Zolve has a solid business model and it could possibly blow sites like Zillow et. al. out of the water. This site favors real estate brokers and their particular culture of managing deals, which other sites do not. With Zolve, brokers can increase their commissions significantly. The site also has a great PR story—built in Iraq, engineered in India. That alone will generate interest.

The site is lagging, perhaps due to high traffic, bugs, whatever? At any rate, I'd expect it to run much faster, as would paying members. Will people be willing to dish out $1000 a year just for the chance to earn more, especially when free and open sourced solutions are everywhere?