OnOneMap Gives You More
OnOneMap is not a exactly a new site, but one I’ve only come around to reviewing recently. The UK based real estate site competes with others like Zoomf, Extate and Nestoria.
Renthusiast.org has covered it in depth. FT.com had some nice things to say about them too.
I’m onboard. OnOneMap has a truly awesome search interface.
I love how you can narrow a search using the postal codes and as you refine the search geographically it gives you a running total of how many listings fit the criteria you are looking for. A very smart and intuitive way to narrow down your results. It’s also a lot of fun.
Once you’ve arrived at the neighborhood you’re interested in, you can see all the properties currently listed for sale. But here’s where OnOneMap trully shines.
Now you can start layering in all sorts of additional information; recently sold properties, secondary schools, even the closest supermarket. And only just recently OnOneMap started plotting the locations of the nearest cellular towers on their maps – so you can judge how strong a signal you’ll receive at home. Handy in mobile-mad Europe, I guess. OnOneMap promises to add even more data to its maps over the next few months.
What makes this work is that the information can be quickly added to and removed from the map and is visible at multiple ‘altitudes’. Some brokers like Coldwell Banker and Real Living in the States have tried adding some of this information to their searches (see Big Brokers Going Local) but none as successfully as OnOneMap.
Some of the other cool things they’re doing – they have a number of widgets (OSX version here), as well as Pageflakes, Netvibes, Google homepage modules available so you can search off site.
One thing that strikes me here is, that the UK seems to have a much deeper pool of national search sites than the US. As such, competition is driving a much greater amount of innovation out of these sites.
Here, we have Trulia and, to a lesser degree, Zillow (though their true search aspirations aren’t entirely clear yet). That’s about it. Sure, there’s the Granddaddy of them all, Realtor.com. But innovation and Realtor.com are hardly synonymous lately.
The only companies that are truly pushing any degree of innovation on the search side (Redfin, Shackprices for example) in the States are still very localized in nature. (And none are live in Portland, unfortunately)
I suspect this situation is because the UK sites don’t have to navigate the myriad of byzantine rules and deal with courting the local MLS fiefdoms that their US counterparts are encumbered with. There, they can focus on rolling out new features (see Extate Launches Video Tours).
Hopefully, one of these days we’ll see some of these features spill over this side of the Pond. I, for one, can’t wait.
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10 Comment(s)
4 Trackback(s)
- From OnOneBlog | May 9, 2007
- From kebmillard | kebmillard | Nov 30, 1999
- From zoomf secures funding - HouseReview | Mar 28, 2007
- From FBS Blog » Blog Archive » Mapping Mayhem | Apr 1, 2007
Incredible Agent | Mar 27, 2007 | Reply
It looks like a nice combo of homes for sale and area statistics/info. Homes for sale mashed up with a site selection tool.
What’s even cooler about this is that many of the data points allow you to make comparisons to homes in ways that you would never have done before. The only problem is that I probably won’t be deciding which home to buy based on the proximity of a cell tower…but it sure helps.
Mike Carter | Mar 28, 2007 | Reply
Hi Joel
Great post. Zoomf hopes to break out of the UK soon so maybe Portland is in the cards! It is interesting to hear about the MLS obstacles you point out that might be stifling innovation in the USA. FYI- Zoomf also has a lot of those OnOneMap features including a handy real-time pricing guide for geographies. (blatant self-plug)
regards
mike@zoomf
EndTable20 | Mar 28, 2007 | Reply
Realtor.com just launched a new version of its property search as a beta last week. Can anyone comment on how (or whether) this update will advance Realtor.com’s position as a home-searching consumer’s destination?
ThomasD | Mar 28, 2007 | Reply
So I need to click on every of these little icons on the map to see details? That can take a long time. I think it only makes sense if you know the area. But if you know the area then all the other overview tools on various ‘altitudes’ are negletable.
Mike zoomf gives me only London results and based on the blog the site started a year ago. Is expanding overseas already an option?
Thomas
Ioan | Mar 29, 2007 | Reply
The site is pretty clean with a great interface. I like to see it expand to other regions.
Runa | Mar 30, 2007 | Reply
OnOneMap works well and has an user-friendly, easy interface.
It would be interesting to see wether an integrated data-base of different search sites could work, and how.
TJ | May 12, 2007 | Reply
Wow I seriously love the compliments our US cousins have given the UK websites on their innovation of web 2.0 sites these days.
Rest assured Joel, there will be similar sites that offer the states this kind of website search and I suspect it’s not far away.
However I strongly feel the best is yet to come from some (as yet) undiscovered UK websites.
Take care and a big hello from across the pond.
TJ
Jeremy Leach | May 12, 2007 | Reply
On one map is a nice site. Here’s our version for real estate in Eastern Europe:
http://www.europropertymap.com
Our idea here is to target overseas property hunters, and taking advantage of the euro being a uniting currency for many european countries.
Jeremy
Terry | May 26, 2007 | Reply
I like your idea, very nice looking site.
Giles Blackburn | Dec 8, 2007 | Reply
Hi,
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the http://www.hotspotting.co.uk service that we have recently launched in beta.
You can add local amenities like stations, schools and gyms to your search. This means the results you get back are ranked on how closely it matches what you want to live near.
We are covering London only at the moment, but will extend that through the course of next year.
Giles