Taking a page from the its search portal cousins and perhaps even its cross-town competitor Redfin, the new Windermere web site launched today, with a simple search box up front and center. Simple, slick and straight to the point.

Broker web pages are often cluttered with all kinds of extraneous information; programs on this and that. Windermere cuts right to the chase and puts the power of its IDX driven search tool up front and center. Just what I’m looking for.

Better still, the search experience gets even better once you dive in. Results return speedily are mapped quickly onto a Microsoft Virtual Earth map. Clicking on a individual listing and you get a nice big picture as well as the ability to read the entire property details, view all existing photos and print out a ready-to-roam flyer.

I suspect this is the model for the brokerage web site moving forward. A simple, interactive online destination that supplies the consumer with the complete search experience. If Windermere takes this to the next level and white-labeled this tool for its agents, they’d be on to a winning combination.

Windermere serves the Western US, in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington state and Wyoming.

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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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I’m with Dustin and Greg. Windermere’s new Property Point 3 real estate search mashup is a real winner. It reminds me a lot of Atlas, which I wrote about back in June.

I love Property Point’s AJAX refreshing of search results and tabbed interface. The user interface is intuitive and easy to use; the design and color scheme is very pleasing on the eyes and nicely supports Windermere’s corporate branding. I did find switching between the zoom and the drag movement was a little kludgey, I’ve yet to see any of the Google mashups implement Google Maps scroll wheel support which would make this transition much smoother. And right now, saving a search takes you off to another section of their site and resets your search criteria if you hit the back. I expect this will be fixed once the site moves out of Beta however.

Redfin best be on the lookout, the lead it enjoyed with its map search interface is rapidly evaporating as the big brokers revamp their sites to meet the Real Estate 2.0 challenge.

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