Perspective: HouseValues Sound-Off On Jan.

Perspective: HouseValues Sound-Off On Jan. 25th, HouseValues announced that it is exiting the mortgage lead generation business and is scaling back or eliminating initiatives that are not critical to its real estate agent customers. These reductions are expected to result in an overall reduction of the company's workforce by about 12 percent or 60 employees.

John Cook, a business reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, caught wind of the news early and his Venture Blog became the sounding post for dozens of anonymous comments and complaints from customers, current and ex-employees.

The company's recent exit from mortgage lead generation has spurred speculation about future growth in real estate lead generation. An interesting question is how these business models can survive in a world where consumers don't want to give up their e-mail addresses in exchange for information they can find elsewhere without having to do so.

--Marlow Harris - 360Digest

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