Realty check: Easier goes titsup.com

Toyzone goes down the pan, too

Two British dotcom collapses yesterday: Easier, the online estate agent, and Toyzone, the UK's very own answer to eToys (also bust).

Easier decided to become a cash shell last year and erected a for sale sign for its operating business. It shut up shop yesterday after failing to find a buyer.

The company reckons that all is not quite lost - it can take off the dust sheets and start flogging houses again if a purchaser comes forward. We don't rate Easier's chances very highly - online estate agents are two a penny in the UK.

And it is farewell then to Toyzone, a company backed by celebrity investors such as Matthew Freud and Jonathan Ross. The company raised £2m in 1999 and - the FT tells us - has flogged £2m-worth of toys since then.

But no investors could be found to pump more money into the, presumably, lossmaking company. Not so very surprising considering that eToys, the giant of this sector finally went titsup.com, but not before suffering death by a thousand cuts, last week. ®