CanWest has launched a new classified website, househunting.ca, for real estate listings. It’s still in beta, which is good because it still has problems with the way it’s coded:

Guess this Canadian website’s code wasn’t written in-house.

There are larger problems. The search results (there aren’t enough listings to analyze whether their search is good or not) produce a MapQuest map that’s centred on some random location that’s not where you searched for. When you move the map so you can see where you actually searched, the page forces itself to reload and change the search results to wherever you have the map pointed to.

The search box also doesn’t provide fine-tuned price ranging (or, for that matter, any search beyond location, price and size). If your range isn’t in their pre-set list, you’re out of luck (or you have to search a few times).

CanWest isn’t alone in these badly-designed online classified sites. All the websites owned by big media companies have downright awful designs. When a simple site like Craigslist is so successful, you wonder why people are trying to make these overly-complicated sites work instead of stealing a good idea.