When you list real property on eBay, you have the option of listing in a regular auction format or in a Classified Ad (advertisement) format. Refer to Classified Ads for additional information. eBay Real Estate auctions enable sellers to advertise their real estate and meet potential buyers. eBay Real Estate is not involved in the actual transaction between buyers and sellers. eBay Real Estate offers two auction options for real estate advertisements, NonBinding and Binding. Calls such as GetSellerList and GetItem return a Real Estate auction listing's current format in the Item.ListingDetails.BindingAuction property (which returns a value of true if the listing is binding).

Important! eBay Real Estate listings do not involve legally binding offers to buy and sell with some exceptions as noted in the eBay online help: Real estate policy.

There are special considerations an application must make when listing items or retrieving eBay Real Estate items on the eBay US and eBay Germany marketplaces:

  • All eBay US Real Estate auction and Ad format listings must be listed with Item Specifics. These define many special properties of eBay Real Estate listings. Item Specifics are a set of well-known fields that are common to (or "specific" to) all items in a particular category. For example, in Real Estate categories, Number of Bedrooms and Sq Footage (Sq. ft.) would be Item Specifics. (Fields like Number of Bedrooms would not make sense for other categories, like books or men's clothing.) Refer to Item specifics for additional information.

    Note: Some eBay Germany Ad format categories (e.g., Wohnen,) support Item Specifics, and others do not.

  • When you list real property on the eBay Germany marketplace, you have the option of listing in the Ad format. As with the US marketplace, when the ad format is used, no auction takes place. Instead, a user can leave a lead for the item listing to show interest. An application can retrieve these leads for the seller by calling GetAdFormatLeads.
  • When you use the API to list real estate, certain standard inputs (such as payment options) are not applicable. Also, the choice of possible values for some inputs (such as the listing's duration) are different for real estate items than for other types of listings.
  • When the ad format listing (ListingTypeCodeType value LeadGeneration) is used, no auction or sale of the real estate takes place. Instead, a user can leave a "lead" for the item to show interest. An application can retrieve these leads for the seller using the GetAdFormatLeads call. To list a property in the Ad format, set the value of the Item.ListingType property to the Ad type using AddItem.
  • Real Estate items can only be listed in Real Estate categories. Once an item has been listed in one of the Real Estate categories, you cannot change its meta-category when revising or relisting the item. That is, you cannot change the listing's category to, say, the Books category instead.
  • Payment method fields are not applicable to Real Estate listings.

In addition to the differences that are applicable for all Real Estate listings, these differences are applicable for Real Estate auction listings:

  • eBay US Real Estate auction listings can have durations of 30 days, in addition to standard auction listing durations

Refer to Classified Ads for differences related to the Classified Ad format.