baseestate.com Waiting for Google
February 5, 2010 by Alice Allan
Rumours of Google Maps adding more real estate listings to its UK and European pages have sparked some speculation on the future of property portals. But there is one portal, established back in 2007, that is eagerly awaiting the expansion of real estate on Google Maps.
baseestate.com, a website powered by Google Base, has just been relaunched and says it is planning to release a paid platform for sellers to list their own properties within the next few months.
The website is based in Australia, but users can also search for listings in the US, UK, and New Zealand. baseestate.com is emphasising its link to Google Maps, pointing out that Google Base listings are automatically included in Google Maps real estate searches. baseestate.com says Google Base currently gives it access to 4 million property listings.
The website’s owner, Craig van Nieuwkerk, told propertyportalwatch.com that while Google Base is yet to catch on in the Australian market, its popularity in the US makes baseestate.com a good source of US listings:
“One thing we have found, especially in the US which is our primary market is that unlike in Australia where [realestate.com.au] has almost all of the listings, Google Maps Real Estate is the most comprehensive listings database, even more so than the MLS system.”
Van Nieuwkerk explained baseestate.com’s upcoming listing service will make it easier for owners to upload property details to Google Base, and that these listings will be included on baseestate.com along with other free classifieds websites such as oodle.com. A personalised domain name and property information page will also be part of the service.
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How is this site a portal? It is just using the Google Base API.
Wouldn’t you get more use and better search by actually viewing Real Estate on Google Maps where it has a better search, and mapping functionality?
Hi John.
If people prefer the Google Maps Real Estate search we have no problem with them using that. But what our research has found is that while Google Maps Real Estate has quite good map search functionality it lacks a few things people expect from a real estate site such as List and Gallery view of searches, saved search and alerts, email to a friend, demographic information (US only), articles and resources etc. But what everyone wants in a site varies greatly, which is why there is so much choice in the US and no dominant player.