Real estate fell into the top 10 serched items on the web last year and all i can say is your skills are very sharp and on the money. the only other product service that fell into the top 10 was the ipod, the rest were celebrities. perhaps a celeb, wearing an ipod looking for a new villa and you have the market cornered.
Actually, I had 36 towns in my mind while posting I am developing 2 niche directories now, - one is Shopping and another gambling. I have 4 in the pipeline --business/real estate/health/adult. Hopefully, I could develop them by end of Dec. 2008
thats good news. I would recommend to keep innovating and push yourself when unproductive. we have 15 projects ourselves that need development http://www.eldevllc.com/about-network.php
I don't own a directory - but my feeling is there should be less, not more - with a focus on quality. There are too many crappy directories out there. Also, I am a big advocate of niche directories - that is the real future IMO