Another Hint at Google Real Estate?
Not to be outdone by that other 800lb gorilla in the real estate space (see Zillow Asks What’s For Sale in your Hood?), Google has been quietly rolling out improvements to its real estate search and Google Base platforms and left a cryptically vague note on their official blog today that serves as a reminder to the industry that they aren’t sitting still as the online real estate space continues to evolve.
They’ve been on a quiet roll lately, methodically signing up brokers willing to feed their listings directly into the classifieds platform (see Windermere and Google Base Team Up and Trulia Lands the Big One) and it looks like they’re taking baby steps towards providing a real consumer search interface or portal for those listings - something that’s been hinted at in the past by the Mountain View giant (see Google Getting Deeper Into Real Estate Search?).
Right now they’re holding up short of calling it Google Real Estate, rather opting for the more generic terms ‘Housing search’. But is it only a matter of time?
They’ve had drop down menus on the results pages for searches like “Portland real estate” for a while, but what’s really interesting is the development that been going on as you click through.
The Housing Search page has undergone a pretty radical evolution since I last saw it, morphing closer and closer to the now almost generic user interface used by Trulia, Shackprices and other search sites. Sure, it lacks their flair and feels much more utilitarian, but it gets the job done. Standard features like the option to output the search as a RSS feed are included and are welcome (oddly, no KML/Google Earth output however).
As their Google Base inventory levels swell, and more traffic follows - real estate search becomes a much more lucrative market for them to monetize (likely through advertising - maybe even aping Zillow’s EZads?). I wouldn’t put it past them to flip the switch one day and push out a whole new portal.
Just like they did with their MyMaps release today, they’re definitely not opposed to taking out companies that have built businesses their on the API (see Social Mapping for the Masses with MyMaps). The folks at Trulia should be paying close attention.
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14 Comment(s)
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Tony | Apr 5, 2007 | Reply
“they’re definitely not opposed to taking out companies that have built businesses their on the API”
Lots of companies dont quite understand this. Not only could they take them out or severely limit the number of geocoding requests…but they also could decide at amy moment to change their terms of service to put ads on your page without your consent. It is THEIR interface after all and nothing is really free especially when wall street wants to see continued growth.
Not a big impact on us because none of the major online mapping services geocode for any of the countries where we are focused so we have our custom geocoder that we built ourselves that works everywhere else in the world.
Sell Your House Today | Apr 6, 2007 | Reply
I think what Google is doing is great. People are likely to research their questions about real estate by going to Google first, so it only makes sense they are trying to make that easier. Why not utilize their popularity? Google’s massive search engines will best serve the public’s need for information, which is a good thing in my book.
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James Nicholson | Apr 6, 2007 | Reply
If I were Trulia I would be pretty scared by Google’s recent moves. As you note, while Trulia’s interface is still much richer than Google’s, Google has many of the same listings and, of course, a huge user base to tap into. We know Google can execute - how long will it take for them to catch up and surpass Trulia?
This points to the basic problem of basing your business solely on third-party data. Someone can can always come in and use that data in a similar - or better - way. This is why I think it’s very smart for Zillow to now emphasize user generated content - it’s the only way to have an ongoing sustainable competitive advantage.
Kyle Else | Apr 6, 2007 | Reply
This Flash Animation may be of interest… It’s a prediction/view from a future merger of Google and Amazon to form the Google grid…
http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/new-master1.html
John Schroeder | Apr 6, 2007 | Reply
Not sure if this fits into the conversation but searching one of the towns were we typically list homes: Waunakee, brought up some interesting results.
One of the homes that it showed as listed we had actually listed over a year ago and it is now sold. It shows a listed date of January 2007 by us. Other listings of ours come up as supplied from a website in Colorado.
Seems to me to be 2 things. The first is that the system has some bugs that will hopefully be worked out. The second is that it looks like any company can supply the listing to Google.
housereview | Apr 6, 2007 | Reply
I think a key question has been missed. How are google intending to generate revenue from this?
matt | Apr 6, 2007 | Reply
Housereview…
Google only sells one major thing…Advertising.
That is how they will make money.
IMO, Yahoo is much more of a threat to anyone…they build more applications that are intended to make money. Google makes billions off advertising, and they dabble in other programming, ie. Google labs.
mymaps is not that big of a deal, it’s not going to destroy any companies.
I could be wrong though
john harper | Apr 7, 2007 | Reply
GoogleRE as in googler has a nice ring to it
Christian Sterner | Apr 7, 2007 | Reply
Focus always wins. I can think of only a few instances where this rule fails, and have been part of a couple start ups that worked larger players in a big way…all because of laser focus and being nimble.
dasko | Apr 8, 2007 | Reply
Yeah, at the point of moment google is doing brisk business and how it generate the advenue?
Ashley | Apr 9, 2007 | Reply
For some reason, this makes me a little nervous - Google is so well known - I see the potential for them to push a lot of similar websites out of the running - I guess as a Google user, Google RE would be a great tool, but on the business side - I wonder how many companies will see a huge drop in business if Google RE takes off. My guess is many brokers out there may want to jump on the opportunity now - that way if the thing does take off majorly, they’ll be some of the firsts to get in there.
Does Google really have to get their fingers in everything?? Well, I giess if it makes it easier for internet users out there….*sigh*
Just wondering what, if any, effect this may have on companies such as http://www.getmyhomesvalue.com. I suppose as long as Google doesn’t roll out a property estimator, GetMyHomesValue, Zillow, HouseValues - they should all be okay.
Incredible Agent | Apr 9, 2007 | Reply
At Inman NYC, I talked to Justin McCarthy about this specifically. He said they don’t do any advertising on the Google Base site. I fully expect that to change since advertising is the simplest integration for them. Otherwise it seems as though Google Base is just another classified ad site like Craigslist and it may eventually turn into a pay for post model.
As far as Trulia and other Google maps API users, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. Google wants everyone to use their API in order to build a business around one of Google’s tools. Trulia’s job is to make the home search experience better at Trulia than at Google Base. Whether they use Google Maps, Yahoo Maps or Virtual Earth Maps, etc. it really doesn’t matter. If Google began pulling the rug out from websites who use Google Maps, these websites would begin to migrate to other solutions and Google Maps would no longer be used in the larger development enviroments.
Zorgo | Jun 4, 2007 | Reply
If they would so decide, I don’t see what would stop Google from moving not only to the National but also the International market. How would the little ’store on the corner’ like http://www.casitafeliz.com compete with the ‘perfect ranking’ and direct access to search, mapping and other tools that that are actually provided by them?