Crain’s Chicago Business
July 24, 2007

Real estate info with a twist

Blockshopper.com posts stories, photos of those buying, selling homes

By Virginia Groark

A former political operative has launched a Web site offering information that used to be shared over backyard fences — namely, who is buying and selling homes.

Brian Timpone, a media consultant and onetime press secretary for former Illinois House Speaker Lee
Daniels, launched Blockshopper.com a year ago, tracking deals in Lincoln Park and Lakeview. After expanding it to St. Louis and its surrounding county, Mr. Timpone is now preparing to feature deals in all of Cook County by July and in the collar counties by fall.

Property transactions are a matter of public record, and have long been listed in newspapers. But Blockshopper.com has a twist: It includes stories on the buyers and sellers, who are sometimes pictured.

In addition to reading the stories, visitors can browse transactions by price range, street or sale date.

“If you want to know what your house is worth, it’s a good place to come and do research,” Mr. Timpone says. “It’s also community news.”

Recent stories, for example, tell of two doctors who bought a townhouse in Lincoln Park and an attorney who sold his townhouse in Lakeview.

’THE PERSONALITY ASPECT’

Mr. Timpone and a St. Louis-based business partner hope to make the site profitable by selling banner ads and offering monthly subscriptions.

Information about buyers and sellers is what sets Blockshopper.com apart from other real estate Web sites, says James Speta, a Northwestern University law school professor.

“This site’s new piece . . . is the personality aspect,” says Mr. Speta, who specializes in Internet law. “It’s more like a social page or gossip Web site.”

Mr. Timpone says he’s received mostly positive feedback, though he says about 20% of those featured are shocked that the site carries information about their real estate dealings and ask him to remove it.

“People don’t understand that property records are public information,” he adds.

Others, like Marshall Ash, a DePaul University mathematics professor whose recent Lincoln
Park condominium purchase was featured, are unfazed.

“It doesn’t bother me in the least,” says Mr. Ash, who didn’t know about the site until a reporter told him about it. But, he adds, “I’ll tell (my wife) about this, and I think she’ll sort of have mixed feelings.

Mr. Timpone isn’t inclined to take down a posting, unless it’s incorrect, though he will remove a person’s picture if asked.

As long as the information is correct, people have no legal recourse, Mr. Speta says. Once something is up on the web, it’s there for all to see. And there are no exceptions, even for Mr. Timpone, who closed on a Lincoln Park property in June.

Blockshopper.com’s five-person staff is “trying to figure out what they are going to write about me,” he says.