Google’s Gunning for Real Estate Professionals

By Joel Burslem on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 Filed Under: Marketing

Google is makes a serious play to woo Real Estate professionals, launching a dedicated page outlining their Google Tools for Real Estate Professionals.

They’re not shy about tooting their own horn on it either:

Google has more real estate searches than all real estate specific web sites.

Google is the most-used search engine for researching and purchasing real estate information and services.

The Google Network drives more traffic to ColdwellBanker.com and Century21.com than all other search engines combined – more than 70% of each site’s traffic.

The Google Network reaches over 80% of U.S. Internet users.

Some of the products they are highlighting include Google Base, Maps, Adwords and their 3D modeling tool Sketchup (for more on Sketchup, see my post It’s a Google world).

Until now, Google’s offerings have remained a little unwieldy and disparate, and this is largely due to its many acquisitions and its rapid roll out of new products. However, there is a visible shift underway at the search giant as it begins unifying its services. For consumers, it’s been most visible with the consolidation of Gmail, Calendar, Photos and most recently Docs & Spreadsheets.

This page is a similar attempt to start to pull together many separate elements and present them as a unified platform for small business owners. And it’s pretty clear. With all these services, Google is a becoming a very powerful destination for real estate professionals.

It’s also a little overwhelming. I’d like to see if there’s anyone out there who is making effective use of all the tools Google provides. But really that’s not the point. There’s enough in there for anyone to pick and choose and still have very effective results. The fact that most of them are free is even more startling.

For those of you attending the Inman Connect Conference next week, Google has a number of special “Maximizer” breakout sessions to attend. I’ve signed up for the 1:00pm Adwords session on Monday. See you there.

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10 Comment(s)

Jim Duncan | Jan 3, 2007 | Reply

It is going to be interesting watching both how Google moves forward and how NAR, Trulia, Zillow, etc respond. Since google announced this in November, there has not been much discussion about it, but it would seem the big companies are already reacting.

Here’s my question - if you were NAR, how would you react/respond to Google? Embrace them? Try to out-innovate? Stave off what may be the inevitable?

Personally, I think that Google and Zillow will merge, but that’s just my crystal ball.
John | Jan 3, 2007 | Reply

NAR trying to out-innovate Google, that is hilarious.
Jim Duncan | Jan 3, 2007 | Reply

Hey, you never know …
Mark Eibner | Jan 3, 2007 | Reply

Google is building the ultimate world portal for not only Real Estate Professionals, but business professionals in general. I, in fact use the entire Google platform or suite of products. It’s quite simply fantastic and you can in fact run a company off of the products. I know, as I have hosted Real Estate Software as an ASP for the past 6 years. NAR could never, ever, ever compete with Google and never will. NAR, as well as most all local MLS’s had their chance….and took the closed door approach to the net. The net is about DATA, DATA and more DATA for free an and no strings attached. Google has all the smart people. Who would you work for as a 28 year old Geek Stud…NAR or Google with stock options and glory. We are playing in the smart world now. NAR could never hire enough smart people to ever catch up to Zillow or Goolge. I will be at inman.. with a platinum sponsor…www.ColoradoHomeStop.com come introduce your self
Teresa Boardman | Jan 3, 2007 | Reply

Google drives about 50% of the traffic to my site an I use several of their tools. My blog has been very sucessful and others encourage me to blog on a national blog and share my local content. What they don’t get that my local blog is national, there is no local and national anymore because of Google. They help create a level playing field for us little guys!
Jonathan R. Bunch | Jan 4, 2007 | Reply

Google’s real estate tools are useful but need to be more consildated. In reference to NAR being able to compete with Google I have to chuckle as well, we all know Google is much more advanced in technology, anything can happen with their money and intelligence. And to those going to the Inman Conference in New York, please check out my booth for Connecting Home Buyers in the Bronze Sponsorship and introduce yourself!
Robert (french property agent) | Jan 4, 2007 | Reply

I think that, of all the real estate tools/services that Google is touting here, for the average agent there are only two significant ones:
- Search engine position. Here Google is the leader for real estate, but as they are the search engine leader for virtually all topis/keywords this is hardly a surprise. The only recent change is their market position has become even more dominant, to the point that I don’t even try anymore to optomise for any of the other search engines.
- Adwords and Sponsored search results. A lot of real estate agents invest in these. Depending on one’s conversion rate, these can be very worthwhile. Here google has a clear advantage is that Adwords and Google sponsored listings have a wider market coverage than any other internet alternative. However, the important metric is “clicks per dollar”. On the basis of this measure, I believe there may be better (more cost-effective) internet advertising alternatives.

The other stuff, in my opinion, is currently not much more than “interesting”. However, it is good to be aware of it and to track it, in case it really takes off.
Steve Leung | Jan 4, 2007 | Reply

Unfortunately, the listing situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Google’s tools are functional enough, but in a real estate world that’s already fractured between MLS information silos, more companies are building more silos. Disintermediation will result in poor property and offer histories, meaning less quality information and context for consumers — resulting in more decisions based on hearsay.

Here in the SF Bay Area, there are already four realtor associations with independent MLS systems. To be fair, they’re making an effort this year at consolidating info into the Northern California Real Estate eXchange (NCREX).

But if agents figured out earlier that it’s more important to interpret information for clients than it is to be a gatekeeper of knowledge, we’d have an open system.

It would raise the quality (read: trustworthiness) of information, make the decision making process faster, increase the “liquidity” of real estate, and earn more for all sides due to efficiency!
Greg Tracy | Jan 4, 2007 | Reply

Google drives a lot of my website’s traffic and it’s WAY easier to advertise on than MSN or Yahoo- and I mean WAY easier.

I use Googlemaps on my website, which I found to have more accuracy, and the leads I get from Google have a higher conversion rate.

Did I mention they were eaiser to advertise with?

Greg- BlueRoof
Brad Nelson | Jan 8, 2007 | Reply

While Google is certainly poising itself to dominate the online real estate sphere, their tools are still largely too complicated for today’s REALTOR. I would put money, and large amounts at that, that even a tech-savvy blogging sales agent with a BlackBerry wouldn’t know where to begin with a Google Maps API, and certainly doesn’t want to learn how to draw a house in Sketch Up. Google needs to learn how to make these tools easy for on-the-go real estate professionals if they truly want to capture the market of REALTORs.