By page views and visitors, SouFun ran the leading real estate website in China in 2009, according to the research firm DCCI. Vincent Mo started it in Beijing in 1999, as a private housing market took shape in Chinese cities. Buyers came to search listings, read property news and compare new projects. Developers and agents paid to reach them. In September 2010 SouFun brought that market to the New York Stock Exchange.

Listings for a New Market

SouFun earned money from marketing services for property developers, listing fees from real estate agents and other paid services on its sites. It covered new homes and resales across many Chinese cities. Mo kept control as founder and executive chairman, while Richard Jiangong Dai ran the company as president and chief executive. The bet was that as Chinese families bought homes, the search for those homes would move online.

From SouFun to Fang

SouFun priced its ADSs at $42.50 each and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SFUN. The offering totaled about $125 million, including shares from selling holders. The company later pushed into running its own brokerage and changed its name to Fang Holdings. The stock lost most of its value over the following decade. Its shares were delisted from the NYSE in 2022.

Cover: House of Mère Bazot, Charles François Daubigny. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a village house (home listings).