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.

Today, the Real Estate Marketing Report Card is being launched in an effort to help sellers monitor their online reach. Rather than having to rely on an agents word that the property information has been placed on the Web, sellers can now easily check for themselves and make sure they're getting the best bang for their buck.

Once you've entered the property details, street, city, state, zip code, and price, the
REMRC searches across the Web and looks a a variety of real estate portals including Trulia, Google Base, Vast, Zillow and FrontDoor for details on where the property is listed.

The results appear as a grade; getting an A means your property has decent exposure on the Web; a D means you need to take some action. In addition to the grade, the site will provide a link to your listing on the various sites so you can see how well or how poorly your property is represented.

Potential Issues

One thing we found lacking in our test was the ability to easily share results. For instance, there is no way to e-mail the report easily (of course you can take a snapshot), nor can you link to a result page. The tool uses AJAX to generate the report, and while this offers a Web 2.0 experience, it also means the URL does not change and anyone wanting to view the report will need to input the data again.

However, in a follow up email, founder Andy Hagans explained that they're currently looking at ways to add this functionality over the next few weeks.

Given the upheaval in the financial markets and weak/declining home sales across the nation, we think this is a useful and timely tool. Property sellers now more than ever need to be aware of what they're paying for, and with this tool they now can be.

How It Works

From here, there are two tabs available: "Find Homes" and "Home Values." To look for a home, you can search by entering in criteria such as city, state, zip, minimum and maximum price, and number of beds and baths. You can also specify via checkboxes whether you want to see new listings only (new in the last 7 days) or open houses listed first.

The search results appear in an easy-to-read scrollable format that surprisingly manages to fit 8 per page. The listings show price, number of beds/baths, location, realtor, and even a photo. To see more information, you only need click the "View" button.

For anyone who has ever been house-hunting, you know that sometimes what you need isn't a set of listings, but a general idea as to whether the neighborhood you're touring is even in your price range. For that, there's the "Home Values" tab, which will display the prices of the homes in a certain address.

See it in action:

This iPhone platform represents a further embrace of modern technology by Coldwell Banker. Earlier this year, they became the first national real estate company to deliver listings to in-car GPS devices through Dash Navigation. That device integration let drivers pull up Coldwell Banker listings, map them, and get directions. Now with the iPhone app, they've made another step towards engaging the gadget-loving consumer...a wise move perhaps since those with the shiniest of toys may be the only ones who can afford to move right now.