NOT everyone in the industry is freaking out about a property crash or scapegoating the pundits who predict it.

"I don't see why the property market slowdown is necessarily a bad thing, " says Brian Fallon, managing director of Daft. ie. With some 115,000 listings on his website, it's surprising to hear. Even though it's best known for matching up flatmates, Daft. ie is . . . much like its user base . . . growing up and looking at buying. Taking on the more established MyHome. ie and Propertynews. com, Daft now markets itself as a generic property site, with ambitions to be a one-stop shop for property. But rentals are still the basis for the vast majority of Daft's business. Which might go some way towards explaining why he's so comfortable with the idea of a house price slump.

"A lot of people have now just decided that they can no longer afford to buy a house. There used to be a sense of panic about getting on the property ladder. From a quality of life point of view, it's great that that's gone, " he said.

The 24-year-old Dublin native, along with his older brother Eamonn, built one of Ireland's most successful internet businesses from a spare room in his parents' house.

Now ensconced in Dublin's Digital Hub offices, turnover has tripled every year for the past three years, according to Fallon. He expects to bring in approximately 4m for 2007.

Fallon is a great admirer of Google's business model, which to him means emphasising innovation and attention to the user needs . . . with the belief that the profits will follow.

"It is in our long-term interests to be a bit altruistic and not be totally focused on the margins for the moment. Of course, it will earn us more money in the long run, " said Brian.

"Most of the successful internet businesses have run on that basis. If our values were to be compared with another company's, I think Google would be a good and complimentary comparison, " he said.

Starting originally as one of Brian's school projects, the company grew its market share exclusively by word of mouth among renters, landlords and investors, earning its market credibility quietly.

"There was definitely a point in the early years if we had gone out and advertised, it would have damaged us, " he said.

"If you can do something that encourages people to tell a friend, people retain that far more then shouting at them from a bus or from TV. If you can penetrate that thought process you are doing well. That was our focus, " he said.

In March of this year, Daft. ie received over 53 million page hits and had over 780,000 individual users according to independently audited figures. His first insight into the potential goldmine a property website could become came when he was just 15 after the site temporarily collapsed.

"I got a phone call from an estate agent when the site was down and he told me, 'Listen our business depends on this'. That was when I knew it could go somewhere, " he as he smiles in his somewhat scattered office.

After spending the summer months working on the website in an upstairs room in his parents house, it was only two years ago that they went from what he calls "project phase" to "business phase", where they are running it full-time.

With very untypical business-speak, Brian outlines why they decided to commence business phase, hiding any strategic thinking they had.

"What really started the business phase was me finishing college and Eamonn coming back from Australia, " said Brian.

"That's when we decided it was worth having a go at full-time. Project phase was great in that we could make mistakes and it wouldn't cost us that much. That was how we learned what works on the internet and what doesn't, " he said.

Among the more serious setbacks Daft faced was that their physical data centre was blown up on 9/11, being in very close proximity to the World Trade Centre.

Daft now employ 20 people in their tightly squeezed offices of Thomas Street in Dublin's Digital Hub, a number that will rise to 25 before the end of the year as they look for extra managers to re-focus on their core audience. Their main competitors, myhome. ie, have also just found new owners in the Irish Times, which prompted Daft's change of focus.

"We have been growing pretty quickly as a company, so we are trying to concentrate on what we were good at, at the start. We do try to breed an environment of innovation in here, where every three months, we come up with something new to use for the site, " said Brian.

Next month they plan to introduce a whole new range of search tools which Brian said will "radically change the way people search for a new home".

What are these new tools? It's something Daft will be keeping secret.

"I can't really say because if we tip off our competitors too soon, it will only make it easier for them to copy us, and we obviously don't want that to happen, " he said.

Other plans include publishing a commercial property price index and tapping the nottoo-internet savvy farmers' market for the advertising of agricultural land. "It's fun times ahead alright, " he said.

The company is now seen as a source of property-market data with their quarterly reports on asking prices. This was something which caused something of a company dilemma when their reports were showing market decline.

"It was mentioned in here alright if this negative news would be good for our customers. We're always going to release it and have it independently analysed, but the potential impact was discussed at the time. In many ways, though, we are insulated from the market, we don't benefit from directly from the prices. We are just an information service.

Not being responsible with information is what causes a crash, " he said.

"Some people feel that saying something negative about the market is the wrong thing to do, because that promotes negative sentiment which in turn promotes a downturn. I think it's only responsible to report what is going on so the market can react, " he added.

Despite this, he sees the property downturn as something positive, but insists that prices will remain stable for some time to come, as developers have reacted appropriately to the warning signs and cut off the supply of housing. They have seen a dramatic decrease in developer activity.

"The reaction of developer's means there won't be any crash, " he said.

"They have slowed down what they are doing or in some cases they have completely stopped, in parts of Dublin and in the commuter towns. It's been the places with the poorest infrastructure that have been hit the hardest and they have been taken down from the site, " he said.

According to Brian, almost all the big property players have expressed interest in buying Daft at some point in time, but that no figures were ever discussed.

"There has been plenty of interest, but its very hard to put a value on the company. We feel this is something we are not finished with or ready to depart from. Why would you leave your meal after the starter? There is a lot more we have to do, " he said.

He ruled out any notion that they may do so in the near future and avoid a property slump.

"We've only really been in business for two years. There are still properties available that are not on Daft. Our job is to get those, " he concluded.

CV BRIAN FALLON

Age: 24 From: Rathgar in Dublin now living in rented accommodation in Harold's Cross, Dublin.
Educated: St. Mary's College, Rathmines, and studied engineering in Trinity College Dublin
Career: Started Daft. ie when he was 14 as a school project with the help of his older brother Eamonn.
Finished college two years ago and has embarked on growing the business ever since. He lectures part-time in Trinity College in entrepreneurship and is a member of the Irish Internet Association.
Hobbies: Rugby, Cycling and Squash