Google Maps new real estate search facility

Google announced on the 6th July that they were offering NZ a new search feature – “search real estate listings on Google maps” – this service can be found as a part of Google maps as opposed to the standard Google search.

Google takes feeds from real estate websites and portals to provide a comprehensive overview of property in an area of the country – here is a view of Hamilton


The search results only show a few properties on the left hand side – otherwise you have to click on each red dot to see the property details and photos.

We took the decision on day 1 to feed all of the listings we have from our 1,160 customers representing 93% of all licensed offices to Google for the benefit of all customers. This amounted to some 100,000 listings (we do not feed business listings). Google is incredibly popular search engine with around 85% of all searches in NZ done on Google. We provide this service free for all subscribing offices meaning that your listings can be seen by an enormous worldwide audience – all for free. We are currently the only website outside of company sites feeding such content to Google – we want to help you gain greatest exposure for your client’s listings.

One very important fact to remember with any of your listings is that if you do not provide an address or allow an address to be shown on a listing then it will not show on any mapping – be that a map on realestate.co.nz so please display the address for your listing.

We currently have around 60% of all listings with a display address – in today’s world with Google maps, satellite imagery and Google StreetView – the question has to be asked as to why would you not display the address?

Just so that you know that I am not alone on this matter – this recent post by Paul Middleditch from Harcourts in Christchurch makes a genuine plea “C’mon fellow consultants – do the basics, please!“

July 20 2009 | Online marketing | 5 Comments »

Google is ready to launch StreetView in NZ – do you know what this is?

StreetView will be launched in the next month or so; and will bring to NZ the most intrusive or the most valuable tool to the real estate industry (depending on your perspective).

You need to understand what it is and how it works.

Have a look at this screen shot and then go to Google Maps and type in the address of any property in Australia – if you don’t know one then use this address (40 Reynolds Street, Cremorne, NSW) in Sydney. Click on the Streetview link in the pop up window in the centre of the map, then move around the image just like in a 360 degree virtual tour.

StreetView is an add-in to the enormously popular Google maps that will shows almost every property in NZ from outside in the street – every property! (there may be a few that are not photographed). The content was created late last year through the massive investment by Google in having cars drive the length and breadth of the country photographing in high resolution every street. This service when launched will allow the viewer to zoom in and out and then turn around and view the property across the street, next door or down the street – all without leaving your desk.

I wrote this blog post on Unconditional when it launched in Australia last month which shows how rich the presentation is on these Australian real estate websites. NZ will be only the 4th country to be activated – USA and Japan were ahead of the Australian launch.

The service will be added to the Google maps on realestate.co.nz when it goes live. It is a part of an ever growing richness of data from a variety of sources on the web. To better understand this trend come along to one of the presentations we are currentlt holding around the country. We want to help this industry better understand these important trends and not get left behind.

October 07 2008 | New feature | 11 Comments »