Google Updates Its Real Estate Search: Should the Competition be Frightened?
Yesterday, Google announced that it was expanding its real estate listings on Google Maps. In an interview with The Age, Andrew Foster, a Google product manager, explained that Google was rededicating itself to this market because it found that a growing number of people are using the Internet to search for a new home. Currently, according to data from Hitwise, Google Maps is only a very small player in the online real estate market and it only sends about 2% of its traffic to real estate web sites. The current market leaders are Realtor.com, Zillow, and Yahoo Real Estate.
It is important to note that Google had been offering this capability on Google Maps for a long time already, and it still didn't leave a dent in Realtor.com's or Zillow's traffic, so we really have to wait and see if Google puts some marketing muscle behind this improved service, or if it will continue to linger in relative obscurity.
It Works, But The Competition is Better
When you are looking for a house, location is a key factor, and just like Zillow, Google Maps puts a house's location at the front and center of its presentation. Looking at houses on Google Maps, however, also quickly makes it clear that Google is only aggregating data from listing web sites and getting its data from brokers who update their listing on Google Base. This means that listings on Google Maps are not necessarily as up to date or as comprehensive as those you could find on similar services.
It is also quite obvious that real estate listings aren't the focus of Google Maps. Google's competition generally offers far more options when searching for a house (type of house, lot size, year built, etc.), and does a better job at displaying other important information about a house and the neighborhood (quality of local schools, for example).
While it is good to see that Google is re-dedicating itself to the real estate market, this is hopefully only the beginning of the company's efforts, because in its current state, these listings on Google Maps are a nice addition to a great product, but don't hold up as a real estate offering in its own right.
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Except, of all the services that you mentioned, Google Maps is the only one that works in Canada. That makes this update a much bigger deal for everyone that doesn't live in the States.
You may want to try doing all this on mobile. Unlike Google, in thousands of cities, Smarter Agent has ALL the MLS listings provided via feeds from our partners. Its called MLS IDX feeds, and you have certain display rules to meet like credit to the listing agent and the MLS (which is why the mentioned Google and others don't do it) but it makes for a great consumer experience, knowing you see every public viewable listings. You can download the application from www.SMARTERAGENT.COM or from any of the stores (IPhone, Blackberry, Android) - or from your carrier deck. many of the leading real estate firms distribute as welll....Soon in Canada, Andre...
I am curious how this works for a sale by owner home. I have a home in Bon Air (Chesterfield County), Virginia. I am about to list this hoe but if a sale by owner is easy enough this way than why not?
Very interesting, indeed. Now if only Google could help me buy my dream home... one of these Luxury Arizona Real Estate properties in Tucson.
If you want this ability on your iPhone check out the Blue Atlas Broker app. It searches the Google Real Estate Data Base on your iPhone, and displays property using GPS and a real-time Map.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=321048502&mt=8
Jess,
Are you trying to find luxury real estate in Arizona, or to finance it?
No wonder. Google always plays 'breaking role' in the cyberspace. Someday, there would be an online tool by which individual home buyers can find conveniently after Condo Staging works to get the good stuff to bid best
Good move, but not a surprise. What would really shake up the real estate market is if Google used it's consumer reach to collect user data on properties.
oops -- meant to say - its consumer reach. Sorry to all the editors out there.
thanks
I really like what Google did, they are making an effort to really connect with their audience, real estate is going up nowadays and will still continue to and it's a great addition to have, but still needs to improve.
- Shania
Bank Owned Properties in Flint
http://flintbankowned.com
Are you trying to find luxury real estate in world, or to finance it?
google is putting local companies who are paying for great real estate finding tools and SEO -SEM in a bad position, making it even harder to get online traffic.
A very brief and well put together article for those not so savvy with web dev. Good read. Even for an experienced web dev'r like myself.