If I had to name the most interesting bit of real estate news this week, it would be about Google entering the real estate market (and starting their quest from New Zealand of all places). It doesn’t surprise me that they did - what took them so long is what surprises me. I mean, if you were in a position to grab a huge piece of a very yummy pie, why would you wait? Google literally rules the world of online advertising which leaves little chance of any real estate website competing with them.

According to the news, in New Zealand there is now a real estate section in Google Maps and it’s populated with listings from 2 big real estate websites in New Zealand. What more, Google invites any estate agency to upload its listings to Google for free.

That article made me so curious about what’s going on with Australia, how far did Google get here and some very interesting facts surfaced as I looked through the listings in Aussie Google maps / real estate section.

Apparently this is a brand new feature and was only added yesterday, July 6. It was announced by Andrew Foster who wrote on Google’s Official Australian blog “Today we’re adding a feature to Google Maps in Australia that we think will make Maps an even more invaluable resource to Aussies as they go about their busy lives. Increasingly, people are heading online when looking for a new house to rent or buy, and from today, we’re adding the ability to search for properties on Google Maps. We’ve worked with partners across the real estate industry to provide up-to-date listings, which you can search for directly from the Google Maps search box.”

So here is what it looks like (watch the video below):

My next question was - where did the listings come from? Apparently Google have solved the problem of populating their section with ads mostly from myhome.com.au, homehound.com.au and real-estate-australia.com.au (in Victoria). Same as in New Zealand, the most popular websites Realestate.com.au and Domain.com weren’t interested in uploading their ads into Google’s new section.

Of course Google’s interface needs a lot of work to match that of Realestate.com.au, but something tells me they will get it “just right” very quickly. It will be very interesting to see how Domain.com and Realestate.com.au handle the competition - or will it be cooperation?

What do you think of this feature, did you try it? Do you think it will work with or against the big real estate websites?

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