Just 18 months after launching its real estate mapping in Australia, Google has dropped the service. This seems to be one of those great innovations that just didn’t live up to expectations, and many Brisbane home hunters probably didn’t even know about it.
When we wrote about the launch we expected the maps would make life easier for buyers and tenants, and most agents’ listings would be loaded through to Google. But heavyweights realestate.com.au and domain.com.au decided to block the service by not feeding listings through. Agents could load their listings direct themselves, but this takes a lot of admin time. This agency took out a subscription with second tier portal myhome.com.au who were feeding, just so we could get our listings through to Google. But most of our competitors didn’t.
So without a good percentage of available stock, Google’s maps looked a little out of touch. And buyers and tenants will naturally go where they can see the most information in the quickest time.
The big portals to their credit have each ramped up their mapping tools, largely matching Google’s innovations in the area. Realestate.com.au even relaunched their entire site last year to ward off the giant – stuffing plenty of things up in the process but showing how keen they were to find new ways to meet searchers’ needs. We now take many of these for granted, like dynamic maps that allow you to move around and refresh the available homes as you go. You do wonder if we’d have these new tools but for Google’s pressure on the big Australian duopoly.
The rate of innovation in real estate marketing has been rapid over the past year and we hope smart new ideas continue. Hopefully there will be healthy competition to ensure Brisbane’s buyers and tenants, sellers and landlords continue to get what they need from the portals.
More future-gazing this week and here’s another innovation that may soon change the way we sell and lease Brisbane real estate.
Geo-fencing is not new technology. Using GPS systems you create a virtual boundary fence in a real world geographic area, and are sent an alert when a device crosses the ‘fence’. It’s used to track Kenyan elephants – when they pass a certain checkpoint the park rangers get an SMS. Stolen cars can be remotely turned off using these systems and Americans use it to keep an eye on their kids (sounds perfect for teenage daughters!) And it may soon be on a real estate portal near you.
Imagine you’ve registered all your criteria for your desired home (bedroom numbers, price etc) and walking through your preferred neighbourhood one morning you get an SMS to tell you you’re about to pass a new listing that matches. The next open home time is included or you can reply to have the agent to call and organise your inspection. Finding Brisbane real estate on your phone is no longer new, but this is an electronic tap on the shoulder – you no longer need to do the searching. A basic GPS matched system, it’s not a complicated process and we understand several US portals are close to implementation.
Recent innovations in property marketing have been all about increased availability of info – better real estate mapping, virtual reality video overlays and broader search criteria. All are designed to help a buyer or tenant cut through the clutter and see only the listings they want. Geo-fencing is immediate, local and specific to your personal needs so we’d expect it to be a real hit.
Meantime local portal behemoth realestate.com.au launched its new ‘face’ this month and the industry collectively stifled a yawn. There are some good ‘about-time’ improvements, such as finally allowing buyers to search from the first page, rather than 2-clicking. For the most part though it’s only a tweak on the old version.
Good to see the addition of dynamic mapping (Google’s big innovation that they’ve now matched) which means you’ll be offered results outside your search area. We’re guessing this will see increased interest in some suburbs where a neighbouring address has a dearer price point. Suddenly suburb boundaries won’t be as relevant and it’s likely more and more buyers will use mapping as their search tool of choice.
What do you think of the ‘new’ realestate.com.au? We’d love to hear your comments.
We try to stay on top of emerging trends in property marketing but the pace of new technology has our industry looking more and more like a sci-fi movie!
Two years ago we noted the emerging use of GPS enabled mobile phones in the USA and how we might soon be using them to find homes for sale in Brisbane. Today the hottest real estate marketing trends are all about using your phone (especially, but not just, I Phones) to search property for sale or rent while you’re out in the area where you want to live. The big portals like domain.com and realestate.com launched mobile phone versions of their sites this year so shopping for Brisbane real estate is becoming a far more mobile sport.
The recent launch of Google real estate mapping was another hint of what’s to come. The future is all about access to info, when and where you want it.
And that’s why the launch of Layar’s Augmented Reality browser is so exciting. Turn your phone toward a building you like the look of and if there’s an apartment for sale the video image on your screen will show a real-time pop-up with the details, internal pics, price and a button to click to ring the agent. Simple but mind-blowing stuff using your phone’s GPS and compass.
Watch the video below to see how amazing this tool will be. No doubt we’ll have it here in Brisbane before long.
We shouldn’t be surprised, given Google are turning out to be the most innovative company to grace the planet this millenium. They’ve now launched their new Google real estate mapping portal for Australia. And it’s guaranteed to draw home hunters in their gigabytes – buyers and tenants included.
Watch out, realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. The big boys are here.
Google Maps is something we’re all getting used to seeing and using and they now display homes for sale and for rent. Choose an area, choose a property type, choose a budget – like you’re used to doing on the other portals. But then the fun starts. Drag the map around or zoom in and out andthe results automatically update.
So for example I’m moving to Brisbane, want to stay as close to the CBD as possible, and I want to know where I can buy a 3 bed house for under $700,000. I start in the city with that criteria and zoom out until I find a little red flag that tells me I’ve got a hit.
The results simply update as I move my map and this fully dynamic results list does exactly what home hunters want it to do – cuts out the rubbish that they don’t want. And agents who leave addresses out of their ads to encourage buyers to call (annoying the #%^$#@ out of most people!) won’t have their ad displayed.
Ironically realestate.com.au has a map tab that few people know exists and they even run a full beta website, property.com.au, with a very similar mapping option to Google’s. Maybe they’ve just never given it the attention it needed?
The property portal game is a fickle one and big players have come unstuck before. But with simple linking through to Street View, mapping of neighbouring businesses and amenities, and the raw muscle of Google behind it, we’d expect to see this new site quickly become a favourite way for Australian buyers and tenants to search real estate.
Just 18 months after launching its real estate mapping in Australia, Google has dropped the service. This seems to be one of those great innovations that just didn’t live up to expectations, and many Brisbane home hunters probably didn’t even know about it.
