These real estate seekers can now make use of Google Maps to solve various problems before actually making the deal. They can first use Google Street View to get a detailed idea of what the neighbourhood is like, and to decide whether or not it would be suitable for their requirements.

Next, home buyers / renters can get directions on how to get to the locality. They can also make use of Google Transit to find out the routes they would be required to use once they move into that locality.

Now, when users want to look for some information about real estate, they can enter a query on Google Maps, say, ‘homes for sale’ in a particular city or a specific area of the city, and Google Maps will provide all the results on a map with a box at the side which will give details of each property available on the listing.

As a further improvement, they will not only highlight the 10 best properties with pins on the map but will also put small circles on all the other listings in the given locality. By clicking on each individual marker or circle, further details about that property will be displayed.

Based on feedback received from users, Google will now provide the address of the property first, followed by the number of bedrooms and bathrooms instead of the other way around, as they used to do earlier.

Users can now see all the properties available to them, at a glance on the web in the comfort of their own home or office, before narrowing down their choices, and then actually visiting just one or two properties before finalizing the deal.

Real estate listings can be posted one at a time via a form on Google, through data feeds or by tying in estate agency databases with the Maps system via a Google Base API. Listings for the same property from multiple agencies get grouped together

At present this service is only available in the U.S. and Australia and New Zealand.

• Google Maps US real estate search
• Australia real estate search
• New Zealand real estate search

Google Base is the service that feeds into Google Product Search. It is a space where sellers can fill in all the information about the products they are selling, which Google will then display to potential buyers. Some of the commonly listed items in Google Product Search are household supplies, electrical and electronic goods, books, vehicles, vacation rentals and even jobs.
With the number of products being marketed through Google increasing at a very fast pace, it is extremely difficult for buyers to select the right product. It is equally difficult for sellers to bring their product to the notice of buyers.

Vendors can use this new feature, which has been added by Google to all Google Base Accounts, to diagnose the quality and hence the approximate position that their products would be placed in on Google Product Search.

When a product is described well, that is, its features and benefits are highlighted in the item list, it is bound to catch the eye of the buyer, over a product that may be equally good but is not presented well. This is the principle on which suggestions are made in the ‘Data Quality’ tab.

Some of the suggestions provided by the data quality tab are to upload a photograph of the items in the feed, or to improve the title of the product feed.

Product Marketing Manager, Jessica Ng says, “We’ve always emphasized the importance of submitting high-quality product feeds to Google Product Search. This means submitting accurate, up-to-date product information in the form of attributes, as well as abiding by best practices for formatting these attributes. Doing so goes a long way toward helping shoppers find your items more easily.”