After reading Fred Wilson’s post about 2nd and 3rd tier cities, and then Seattle, I thought I’d list the top real estate startup cities (in a very unscientific way):

  1. Seattle: Zillow, Estately, Market Leader, HouseValues, Redfin, ActiveRain. Even without Zillow, it’s a thriving real estate startup center. With Zillow, it’s the clear front runner.
  2. San Francisco Bay Area: Trulia, Opendoor, Realtor.com, Sindeo. Trulia’s clear success as well as being home to the industry’s longstanding incumbent Realtor.com, teamed with the sheer volume of funded startups (in and out of real estate) puts San Francisco easily in the 2nd spot.
  3. New York: WeWork, Doorsteps, Hightower, Breather, Spacio. I suppose if we’re ranking by valuation alone, NYC may be at the top of the list based on WeWork alone. I guess I’m biased toward consumer, and don’t really think of WeWork as a pure real estate startup.
  4. Dallas: I’m starting to hear more and more about the city, though I’m not sure it’s had any big winners yet. Perhaps its more of an up and comer…
  5. Boston (Placester)? Charleston (Boomtown)? Washington DC (CoStar)?

What real estate startups have been built in your city? What companies are being built now? If you could pick any city to start a real estate startup in, which would it be?

(PS join the Geek Estate group on Horizon using the unlock code “geekestate2015” for a better way to find real estate techies by location)