Real estate easier to find in Google Maps

It's now easier to find unaffordable real estate in San Francisco's Mission District through Google Maps.

(Credit: Google)

Another day, another improvement to Google Maps that increases time spent on the site.

A few days after sending shock waves throughout the portable navigation industry, Google's back adding features to Google Maps that will once again draw the attention of the real-estate industry. Google Maps has been showing real estate listings since this summer, but the company added a few tweaks Thursday designed to make it easier to search for a new home with Google.

If you're looking at a particular slice of the world through Google Maps, you now have the option to select "Real Estate" from a drop-down box in the "More..." section on the top of the map. And for those unable to afford real estate in San Francisco--or unwilling to pay the shockingly high prices offered in this town--Google Maps also now offers rental listings.

Google has always taken pride in the short amount of time users spend on its site, emphasizing that its goal is to get you the information you need as quickly as possible and get you on your way to that destination. But with features like these in Google Maps, you can spend almost the entire home-search process on Google, only clicking through to the real-estate company's page, once you've found the four or five places that pass muster.

It's possible that makes for a better search experience, but it also increases the amount of time spent within Google's domain. Advertisers like that.

[AppleSuxLeo]

The Google Voice Nav is crazy accurate and fast.
Another win for Droid !

[eltoro2827]

Bing maps is better

[AppleSuxLeo]

I like Bing too...but MSFT really dropped the ball on Win Mo 7.

[rljohnsn]

Good to see google integrating this maplet into the core product. I used it extensively most of last year. Sites like ziprealty are still a bit more current since they pull info directly from the MLS. Although I only used ziprealty to confirm what I had found using this maplet. Another great resource for real estate searches is schoolperformancemaps.com.

[CupertinoBill]

What in heck does this have to do with Google Maps? Get off this forum and go back to class before recess is over.

[codynews]

bing is way better because of their birds eye view. If not for that, I like using google maps much more day to day.

ZIllow is basically google maps + house data. So if house data is on google maps, where does this leave zillow?

[Marc Bennett]

Interesting!