This interview by Global Property exchange with Simon Baker, who just so happens to be the CEO of News Corporation-owned REA Group, features a few choice quotes about web2.0 start-ups in the real estate space. Here are the two comments that stuck out for me:

“You don’t have to look sexy to deliver.”

“Sites like Zillow.com get a lot of press and they look great but will they deliver? … I doubt whether they do more than US$3 million a year compared to Realtor.com’s US$300 million”

“Outside of Asia, South America and Eastern Europe, my advice [to would-be real estate portals] would be, keep your money. In fact, if you were given £20 million to start a new real estate portal, the best thing to do would be to [not to start the portal at all and] set up a consultancy to take the money from them.”

 (h/t to Yannick of Properazzi)