Google Maps has now launched its property search for UK users, emphasising that listings will come from real estate agents as well as property websites.
A statement from Google explains that zoopla.co.uk, propertylive.co.uk, ezylet.com, smartnewhomes.com, Vebra, propertypal.com, SpicerHaart, Countrywide, and zoomf.com have all added listings to maps.google.co.uk. Home hunters can access these by checking the “properties” option from Google Maps’ “more” menu.
“Given the importance of location to a home search, we’ve made it easy for home buyers and renters to see listings that match their criteria on Google Maps even as they pan and zoom the map to different areas,” says Andrew Foster, Google’s product manager.
“We know that many UK home buyers are already using Google Maps in their house hunting, and by adding property listings to the map we’re putting everything together for them in one place.”
In a statement following Google’s announcement, UK market leader rightmove.co.uk said it welcomed the launch.
“rightmove.co.uk is the world’s largest user of Google Maps according to figures released last month, though rightmove.co.uk internal user statistics show that 97 percent of search results are still displayed in a list format rather than on a map,” the portal said.
“Users appreciate being able to locate an individual property on a map, but seem to want it right alongside the detailed property information and the other research resources that rightmove.co.uk provides,” added rightmove.co.uk commercial director Miles Shipside.
“I’m sure that estate and lettings agents will try a search on their own area in Google wearing a home hunter’s hat, and judge for themselves the quality of the user experience.”
Shipside added that rightmove.co.uk does not intend to add its listings to Google Maps at this stage, saying it does not seem to add any extra features or benefits to those that rightmove.co.uk already provides.
“The well-established appeal of our site in the minds of the UK public is that we provide everything for them in one place when home hunting,” Shipside said.
“We will continue to develop our website to ensure our user experience stays well ahead of any competition. This includes an innovative new spatial search tool launching in the next month.”
rightmove.co.uk ends its statement by noting that “zoopla.co.uk is now providing its listing content to three sites that accept private seller advertising – eBay, Gumtree and now Google – a historically contentious area with agents.”
Google product manager Andrew Foster told propertydrum.com that while it is possible for home owners to list on Google Maps, they would first need a website listing their home, and would then have to add their listing details to Google Maps.
“Our experience in Australia has shown that there has not been any significant take up of this facility,” Foster said.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I find it hard to understand why Foster is announcing that Google has launched this service in the UK on one hand and then state that “Our experience in Australia has shown that there has not been any significant take up of this facility,” If the Australian result is so poor why launch in the UK? Doesn’t make sense. What am I missing here?
On a second reading I now realise that when Foster was saying “Our experience in Australia has shown that there has not been any significant take up of this facility,”.. he was refering to owners listing their homes.
On that point I see that someone made the following comment to the source article at propertydrum.com ;
“YOU may not know how to set up your own web site but your kids surely will and this is how they will buy and sell in the future perhaps! That is besides some clever dick setting up a piece of software to enable ANYONE to use it without the need of your own website and to add their own house for sale for say a fee £50 fee or less heaven forbid; sounds fair enough! Oh dear watch out, change is a coming!”
we add all our properties under google base last few years. we had large number of city of london property stock. But we got very few CTR from google map. But very large impressions. If google start promoting google property map, then will change this, if not, it is going to be another cap for the google product list.
It’s hardly surprising that Rightmove are reluctant to provide listings to Google. That would be turkeys voting for Christmas
Over time Google as an aggregator should disintermediate the existing property portals by grabbing their traffic and effectively undermining the value proposition to estate agents with a free advertising model. And it could get worse for the property portals if Bing and Yahoo also enter the market.
Previous attempts to introduce competition to the traditional estate agency model have failed to gain any traction because the property portals have favoured traditional estate agency refusing to publish listings originating from alternative business models.
It will be interesting to see for how long Rightmove’s subscribing agents choose to pay to return the favour.
Before its all said and done Google and Yahoo will completely dominate the online real estate search business.
It will make null and void self list real estate sites.
Google does a great job of finding what works – whoever is doing it – and doing it themselves.
Home sellers and landlords can access the Google Property Search Uk map by using a free listing facility on the rentopotamus.co.uk website. Rentopotamus listings are fed daily to Google. This is an ideal solution for home sellers and landlords who are not marketing through an estate or letting agent but wish their properties to be listed on Google’s Uk property map. Home sellers and landlords contact details are inclus=ded at Google so interested searchers can make direct contact with the home seller or landlord.