I stumbled upon this interesting tidbit recently while doing some research for another post. It looks like you can now filter a search for real estate listings by brand using Google.

This looks likes the initial implementation of the deals signed last year to feed listings into Google base (more on StartupSquad).

Right now the results are confined to two brokerages; Prudential California/Nevada/Texas Realty and Keller Williams. Listings are kind of sparse and the search results pages feel half finished so I’m guessing this is still early stages or just a proof of concept.

PruCal/NV/TX listings

Keller Williams listings

Also, no sign of any of Realogy’s listings yet, who have also signed a deal to feed Google Base (see Trulia Lands the Big One).

It raises an interesting question however — do consumers have any brand preference when searching real estate?

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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.

More from Screenwerk and the Inman Blog.

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Hitwise, the Internet traffic ranking service, just released its US Real Estate Report for February 2007. The report is based on a sample audience of 10 million US Internet users. It’s kind of like Nielsen numbers for the ‘Net.

Top 30 Real Estate Websites

(click on thumbnail to get a larger image)

My observations:

• Move.com is on the march… Maybe Dustin Luther’s guerilla marketing tactics are paying off with some new eyeballs.
• MSN Real Estate is slipping. No surprise here. There’s been little to no development of this portal – certainly no new features to speak off. Looks like it’s getting left in the dust.
• HouseValues perking up? After a long slump HouseValues has made a significant jump in the rankings. I’ve been seeing a lot of HouseValues’ commercials on my local cable channels lately – I’m guessing this renewed advertising blitz is paying off in some traffic to the beleaguered destination.

Top Search Terms

(click on thumbnail to get a larger image)

My observations:

• Zillow.com in the Top 10 means all its PR initiatives have paid off big time in huge brand awareness. This company has done little to no traditional marketing. That’s quite an achievement.
• Brand slugfest. Remax demolishes all other brands in searches. Coldwell Banker and Century21 are playing catchup.

Speaking of search, in a related post on Hitwise’s blog, Bill Tancer drills down into the connection between Google and Real Estate. Apparently, the Mountain View giant is responsible for 16% of the total traffic to real estate sites.

He also points out that Google Base is enjoying some success too – largely due to applications utilizing its database. Realogy’s 500,000+ listings are bound to help them out too (see Trulia Lands the Big One). According to Tancer, the following verticals are the most popular uses of Google Base.

• Employment 15.7%
• Real Estate 13.1%
• Auto Classifieds 11.9%
• Recipes: 7.1%
• Retail: 4.6%
• News: 3.4%

I’m still not entirely clear what Google’s end goal is with Google Base – but it’s clear its use for real estate is growing substantially.

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vFlyer is a new startup that aims to help you create a virtual flyer and post it to online classifieds sites like Google Base, Oodle and Craigslist, as well as to a number of other paid sites too. It’s very similar to the service Postlets.com already provides, but adds a number of unique features.

Like Postlets, vFlyer allows you to use a number of very nice templates to display items for sale or listed properties. (e.g., Beautiful Pacific Heights Flat for Vacation Rental). Creating a vFlyer is very simple, just a matter of filling in a number of fields with the appropriate information. The whole process takes little time and is very straightforward. Using vFlyer, anyone can easily have a professional looking listing ad in minutes.

Hitting the publish button automatically creates a unique URL for your listing and sends it out to all of vFlyers partner sites, but unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to be more selective about which sites you can send it to. Right now, it seems to be an all-or-nothing approach. vFlyer does give you some bookmarklets and the raw HTML code that will allow you to post your listing to other sites (eBay, craigslist) – but overall this solution seems a little kludgey to me.

Once you’ve published your listing however, vFlyer has a number of advanced feautres you can use, including sending your listing to more people via email or downloading it as a HTML or PDF document (which you could then use in your flyer boxes). On the backend, once your vFlyers are live, their statistics tab gives you traffic statistics on all your published listings for analysis. This is all pretty slick.

One very cool thing is that vFlyer is partnering with RapLeaf, an online reputation service which I wrote about earlier, so that Realtors can market and benefit from their online reputations.

vFlyer is currently in Beta, so creating a flyer and using the service is currently free. No word on whether they plan on charging for the service in the future.

Read more about vFlyer here: Wanted: A Way to Profit by Simplifying Web Classifieds – New York Times

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Windermere’s new PropertyPoint 3 home search tool, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, launched today with another added bonus. All of the broker’s properties will also be automatically uploaded to Google Base. As Geoff Wood, Windermere’s CEO ungrammatically puts it:

“Where your customers are is where you need to be”

Google is undeniably the premier search destination on the ‘Net, so having your listings in their engine only makes sense. Google Base is evolving into a very interesting destination. (More here: Google Getting Deeper Into Real Estate Search?)

If enough brokers follow Windermere’s lead, could we be seeing the emergence of a gMLS soon?

Update: John Cook says the new site has some kinks that need to be worked out

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Zillow is not the only one launching a redesign this week. The Google Base homepage has been redesigned as well. The new page makes it easier to bulk upload listings and also adds the option of using the Google Base API.

The classifieds site can still be found at base.google.com.

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