This week, Google Maps launched a new house-hunting service in the UK: ‘Google Property Search’.
By clicking on the ‘More’ button within Google Maps, users can choose to check the availability of hundreds of thousands of properties for sale or rent across the world.
Google has teamed up with some of the UK’s largest estate agents including Countrywide, Zoopla, Zoomf and Northern Ireland’s PropertyPal to offer the new service, which allows users to search for properties by price, location, number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms.
“About half of the queries on Google have a geographic component,” says Google product manager Andrew Foster. “We know that many UK home buyers are already using Google Maps in their house-hunting, and by adding property listings to the map we’re putting everything together for them in one place.”
The response to the UK service has been positive so far and should give the real estate industry a boost, by creating a property hub which brings sellers and buyers together in one place.
Google plans to expand the site by bringing more estate agents on board in the future, following in the footsteps of Google’s successful American and Australian property sites.
Your Comments on Google Property Search?
What do you think of this? How may this affect estate agents and aggregate property websites like PropertyNews.com or Daft.ie?
Do you think it will make your life easier, as a house buyer/renter?
We’d love to hear your comments. Please reply below.
This service was dropped by Google a year ago.
Thanks for the update, Louise