By Isabelle Repiton

EBay France this past week launched “EBay Immo,” a section dedicated to real estate classifieds, with French homes and apartments to sell or rent as well as vacation rentals.

The French site follows on the heels of EBay’s launch of real estate services in Italy earlier this month.

For now, it’s just a listings board where ads can be posted for free for two weeks, and EBay isn’t charging transaction fees. There are no auction or buyer-seller functions; advertisers are expected publish contact information in their listings.

Each ad must include pictures (up to 12). And soon, the platform will be opened to video.

After 14 days, advertisers can pay €4 per ad to keep it online for four additional weeks. Upsells are available: top position and bold text.  Private-party advertisers can publish two ads simultaneously; professional sellers up to 50.

EBay offers additional fee-based services, including property valuation estimates.

EBay had already launched a real estate section in Italy, “EBay Case,” (EBay Homes) and the French real estate section is managed from Rome. (EBay is reportedly laying off as many as 50 of its 85 French workforce, according to French media, as part of EBay’s announced worldwide workforce reduction.) Five days after is launch, EBay Immo is still a small player, with only 100 flats on sale in Paris and no more than 3,000 for the whole country. But EBay relies on its large audience in France (12 millions unique visitors in August) to boost this activity.

This new service can drive more trafic, and as the real estate market is slowing down in France, online transactions might be favored by buyers. In general, French e-commerce has not been affected by the economic crisis – yet.