We went surfing through Digg to find the most popular real estate stories from the last year. Here are the 14 coolest real estate stories that we could find among the masses of submissions:

1. The next real estate boom
   ” Picture the scene: it’s 2025, and you and your family are living in a beautiful, leafy-green village that seems more 19th century than 21st, even though it has only been in existence for ten years and is just 20 miles from a major American city.”
2. Photos of 100 Rooms, each 100 Square Feet in Size in Hong Kong Public Housing
   This photo-montage of 100 tiny apartment rooms was a very popular topic.
3. Super Tree Houses
   Check out the coolest tree houses you’ll ever see!
4. The 7 Coolest Web 2.0 Real Estate Sites
   We picked the 7 coolest real estate web 2.0 sites back in April. Low and behold, this was to become one popular post.
5. Craigslist to charge fees for real estate listings
   This strategy, which has taken place in selected cities, must have brought a ton of cash to the Craigslist crew and Craig Newmark.
6. The End for 6% Realtors?
   With the advent of new companies like Redfin and great new technologies, will full price real estate agents kick the bucket?
7. For the first time in the U.S., asking price for a house tops $100 million
   Donald Trump’s $125 million Palm Beach home broke the $100 million barrier for the first time in US history. Ironically, the price was soon thereafter Trumped!
8. The Greenest Office in America
   Adobe has turned its headquarters into a towering example of environmentalism - and is saving millions of dollars in the process.
9. 3 Million Bees Removed From Kitchen Of Couple’s Apartment
   A south Florida couple was happy to not be sharing their home with millions of bees. Jesus Molina said he and his girlfriend were ready to buzz off after a swarm of bees invaded the kitchen wall of their Miami Beach apartment. (video)
10. Dubai Dominates Global Architecture with Tallest Building and More
    Dubai, located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been at the forefront of global architecture and is in the process of building the world’s tallest building, amongst other things.
11. Green Buildings are all the rage in New York City
    “They are not yet as ubiquitous as the Toyota Prius, the hybrid car popular among the ecologically minded, but “green” apartment buildings have begun popping up around Manhattan.”
12. The World’s Smallest Apartment
    Imagine living in the world’s smallest apartment. . . this thing is tiny! (photo)
13. 15 Common Renter’s Rights
    “You don’t have to be expert in landlord-tenant law to protect yourself. Just brush up on your rights — and read your lease before signing the dotted line.”
14. Tenant Leaves Behind 70,000 Beer Cans
    Imagine walking in on your apartment after your tenant moves out and finding 70,000 cans! (photo)

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Tags: apartment, biggerpockets, building, cool, craigslist, digg, Donald, dubai, estate, future, green, landlord, popular, real, redfin, stories, tallest, Trump

I’m not sure how I originally heard about the Realivent site, but there was something tempting about a site that “is looking for beta testers.” A few weeks ago I filled out their tester sign-up form, and on Saturday, was admitted into their Beta program. After filling out a simple registration form, I was able to access the various functions of this site, which looks like a consolidator of real estate blogs, news, and property listings.

Here are the site’s real estate tools:

Property Listings:

It seems like the site is just scraping Craigslist’s listings and integrating the location into Google maps like many of the other real estate mashup web 2.0 sites. In addition to showing the basic property info (asking price, beds, baths) and a photo, it appears as though Realivent will eventually have comparable data, school and neighborhood information. Click on a property listing, and you’re taken right back to Craigslist. In its current state, the site only shows a handful of San Francisco listings, and has basic search functionality; this section looks nice, but is not currently functional. I’m not sure if they are going to just crape listings from other sites, or if they will have their own listings — we’ll see.

Real Estate News:

The real estate news section of Realivent appears to function like sites such as Netscape, Shoutwire, and the original news rating site, Digg. Users can post links to real estate news with a brief summary, and others can rate that story. Unlike the aforementioned sites, the articles with higher ratings and greater interest do not move to the top of the page; they are simply given a one through five star ranking to determine popularity. In addition to rating articles, the site lets you post a comment about the article, email it to a friend, and lastly, report the story (if SPAM, I’m guessing).

Real Estate Blogs:

Realivent lets users add blogs to the site. This section functions in the same way as the real estate news section, except that once added, articles posted on the blogs will appear on the site. You can rate, comment, email and report any of the stories.

The last thing I noticed about the site is that there is a search bar that includes videos. I’m not sure what kind of videos they intent to have on the site, but it seems like a strange fit with a real estate site.

Overall, the site appears to be an aggregator of various real estate information. It looks nice, but doesn’t bring anything technologically new to the online real estate world or the web in general. We’ll wait and see what else they bring to the picture once the site is fully functional, and will reserve judgement until then.

The site does not list a date of public release.

Tags: beta, blog, craigslist, digg, estate, listings, mashup, property, real, realestate, realivent, web20