'Google Real Estate' launched (quietly) last Monday, 1pm, EST, and has set the industry abuzz with discussion about what impact it will have on the online real estate industry, and the larger property portals in particular.
Google now takes property uploads from anybody, for free, and serves them up within its site in the MAPS section (then choose real estate or go to http://maps.google.com.au/realestate).
Interestingly, it chose Australia to launch this product (Google Maps were developed in Sydney). We've been testing the upload and have found it to be very clean and easy - once a day (that's all they allow), and it refreshes everything everyday (so no old listings or out of date stock can hang around). That's a neat idea.
So - we have the most visited site in the world now showing properties in a search. All on funky interactive maps (aussiehome.com has had interactive maps since day one!).
Some have called this a game changer - it could be, but like the best game changers, we feel it will not happen overnight, but will slowly drag away revenues from the major portals, in the same way revenue has fallen from the print media towards the internet. aussiehome.com gladly uploads all its listings to Google Real Estate, so our clients get more traffic (views are directed back to the feeder web site anyway.)
Do check out the site - what do you think?