Over the past few months, it’s become clear that Google Maps isn’t just about directions. With the release of Place Pages, the Favourite Places program, and a set of tools aimed specifically at real estate agents, we now know Google Maps wants to become as important to businesses as it is to people figuring out how to get from A to B.

So it should come as no surprise that Google Maps is now giving businesses the option of adding their logo to their location, making it visible to users as they zoom in. Of course, Australian real estate agency chain and Google Maps partner LJ Hooker is on board.

But the scheme isn’t as straightforward as it might first appear. According to a report from The Sydney Morning Herald, this isn’t just a matter of a business paying to see their logo on Google Maps. Google must first determine if the business is “relevant” to Maps users, and the logo will only remain on Maps if enough people are clicking on it for more information.

“[J]ust because a particular business has paid for their location, it doesn’t mean it will necessarily show,” Google product manager Matt Leske told digital-media.net.au. “If a bank wants to put a logo on all its ATM locations, those inside a shopping centre won’t show because the shopping centre is more prominent on the Map. Though a brand will only be charged for the logos displayed.”

So far, the logos are only available in Australia and New Zealand, but digital-media.net.au reports there are plans to offer the option in other markets in future.

Since Google first began adding real estate listings to Google Maps in mid-2009, the world of online real estate has been monitoring the company’s every move. Each upgrade brought more speculation on how Google was planning to change things for property portals, real estate agents, and property hunters.

Now, we have a clearer idea of where Google is headed.

At a Sydney press conference today, Google revealed what it described as its “vision for working with the real estate industry”. That vision involves, among other things, a marketing partnership with one of Australia’s most well known real estate agencies: LJ Hooker.

This new marketing push will see physical representations of the Google Maps “pins” appearing across 16 Sydney locations, from shopping centres to cinemas and even on Bondi Beach. Google says the co-branded pins are meant to encourage more Australians to head online to begin their real estate search, but with 87 percent of the population already doing so according to Nielsen, it’s clear this is a push to get Australians thinking “Google” when they think of online real estate.

Karim Temsamani, general manager of Google Australia and New Zealand, said today that Google Maps now links over 1,000 real estate websites across Australia and New Zealand. Along with LJ Hooker, Google also includes Ray White, First National and Century 21 amongst these partners, as well as smaller portals such as homehound.com.au and myhome.com.au. As pleased as Google seems to be with these partnerships, one big question remains: what of Australia’s market leader, realestate.com.au, and the number two player domain.com.au?

When quizzed about the relationship with the two portals, Andrew Foster, product manager for real estate search on Google Maps, remained diplomatic. “We’re happy to take listings from anyone,” he said, while confirming that there is currently no arrangement to take listings from either portal. “At this stage they’re choosing not to provide listings,” he said.

“We’re not sitting back and waiting for large providers,” Foster continued, emphasising that Google’s coverage is “diverse and comprehensive”, and that there is “genuine enthusiasm to be seen on Google” from the real estate industry.

Foster’s demonstration of the full extent of real estate search on Google Maps showed some possible reasons for that enthusiasm. Beginning with a simple keyword search for real estate in a certain area, users can now choose to refine their results further by layering results from other Maps searches, ending with a map that shows not only listings but also nearby restaurants and cafes, schools, businesses, and estimated transit times from place to place.

Clicking on any of the pins on this map will takes users to a Place Page, where they can find even more detailed information about a property. Photos, inspection times, floor plans, and videos from YouTube can all be included, along with Google’s Street View, which is currently being updated for Australia and New Zealand.

The Place Page is also where Google addresses the issue of multiple sources for a listing. Under the property’s details, a list of the sources is provided, so users can choose to find more information from the agency’s website, or go to the relevant property portal to continue searching.

google.com.au/realestatetools is another part of the push towards real estate agents. This is where Google is aiming to “cut through the clutter” and present real estate agents with all the Google tools it thinks could be useful. Needless to say, Maps is included, as are AdWords and YouTube.

Today’s announcements were all focused on the Australian and New Zealand markets, and Foster said there was nothing to announce in terms of real estate search on UK Google Maps or elsewhere. But if this latest push manages to draw in Australian and New Zealand property hunters, we’re guessing it will only be a matter of time before Google Maps real estate search gains momentum overseas as well.

Not only is this a great way to promote your listings to an international audience, it is also a great tool to differentiate yourself from your competitors when marketing to potential sellers.

If you would like to be a guinea pig and help us test the application for free, just go to www.listglobally.com and click the link on the home page to register for a free trial. Once we receive your request, we will be in touch via email with your login details.

The news just over a week ago that Google was “entering” the UK/European market has sent the share prices of Rightmove and Seloger into a tailspin. Seloger dropped by 9% while Rightmove has plummeted a whopping 17%. Seloger has since recovered to its pre-news price while Rightmove continues to be significantly down.

So let’s look at what happened, will the property portal landscape change and is this impact on the share prices is justified.

An article by the Financial Times (Dec 2 titled “Google set to enter UK property market”) seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons. The article stated that Google is in talks with British estate agents and that “experts” say that an entry by them to the market could pose a serious threat to existing property websites. The article didn’t talk about what Google was going to do and Google didn’t comment. So there is really not much to go on. So the only guide we really have as to what Google may do in the UK and Europe is what they have done in Australia.

Google “entered” the Australian market 6 months ago (July 2009) when they made it possible for agents, brokers, franchise groups, and portal sites to place their listings on Google Maps. When a user does a search on Google Maps (not the main Google search) for real estate, Google plots the houses in its database on the maps and users can then click on the various dots to see if they like the houses and then are driven back to the advertiser’s site.

At that time, there was a similar uproar and many were predicting the death of realestate.com.au and domain.com.au and the REA Group share price dropped nearly 7% from $5.90 to $5.50. However in the 6 months since the announcement by Google, the REA Group share price has increased 60% to $8.84, the traffic to the site has increased from 4.5m UB’s in June 09 to 5.4m UB’s in October and analysts are predicting an additional 20% revenue growth for the REA Group in FY 2010.

In August, PropertyPortalWatch wrote about the challenges for Google knocking over the market leaders. Here is the link to the article called “The Challenges for Google Real Estate”. All of these still hold true.

Many hope that Google will be the saviour from the “big bad” commercial property portals and deliver free marketing to the agents. However this is a simplistic view and underestimates the challenges Google faces. The challenges include gaining enough listings, maintaining their quality, driving traffic to the maps area, and ensuring the interface is attractive to consumers.

Even if Google is successful in addressing the above, they will only be delivering clicks to the agent’s site not email leads. The agents will need to invest more in higher quality sites to convert the clicks to leads. This, of course, comes at a cost. The old adage holds true, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

It will be interesting times and if I was an agent, I would be putting my listings on Google. However, any clicks I get from Google should be supplemental to my existing online marketing strategy and not replacing my use of established portal sites.

open2view.com, a real estate website that covers New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the US, has been caught out doctoring the weather in its listing photos.

New Zealand website stuff.co.nz pointed out at least two listing photos that show the same cloud formation to open2view franchise owner Peter Evans, who admitted the website uses blue sky “templates” when photos are taken on cloudy days.

“No-one wants their house shot on a grey day, but the reality is you don’t get blue days every day. The sky is ever-changing, so [doctoring it] doesn’t make any difference,” said Evans, who maintained images of the houses themselves were never altered. “We are very strict on what can and can’t be done. Otherwise it could become false advertising.”

Responses to the revelation were mixed, with New Zealand Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove saying the changes were “a bit on the nose”.

Consumer NZ adviser Maggie Edwards told stuff.co.nz that changing listing photos was “a fine line”.

“If they put sunshine on a spot that never gets sun, then yes, you’d be right to quibble,” said Edwards.

In defending the changes to the photos, Evans argued that tight deadlines often dictated when a house had to be photographed. Evans may have a point: according to New Zealand’s official tourism website, newzealand.com, the country that was named “Land of the Long White Cloud” by its Maori people is prone to sudden changes in weather.

If you do find yourself having to take photos in dreary weather, check out our Top 10 Tips for Property Photos for some other ideas on how to make the most of your photos.

Most recently, last week, New Zealand website trademe.co.nz announced a price increase for single rental property listings. The fee to list a residential property for rent has increased from $69 to $99.

The company says: “There are no success fees in this category and you can relist for free until rented.”

It is currently $399 per month for agents to place unlimited rental listings, or $699 per month for unlimited sales and rentals listings.

trademe.co.nz is New Zealand’s leading real estate classifieds website, and also lists jobs, auto and other items for sale. The price increase comes after TradeMe’s parent company, Fairfax Digital, which is part of Fairfax Media, announced its half year results for the six months ending 28 December 2008.

While Fairfax Media as a whole saw profits slide, and reported a nett loss, the company’s online businesses reported relatively good news – revenue of $135.1 million, an increase of 13.7 percent.

Interestingly, New Zealand’s market leading classifieds website trademe.co.nz was the stand out success story in the Fairfax Media results, with Trade Me New Zealand posting a revenue increase of 22.1% with EBITDA up 17.2%.

zoodle.co.nz

New Zealand also has a new property information website, zoodle.co.nz, bringing together in depth data on 1.5 million New Zealand homes. Behind zoodle.co.nz is New Zealand’s number two property portal, the industry backed realestate.co.nz.

zoodle.co.nz draws a data from a range of sources, including realestate.co.nz and Terralink, as well as Stats New Zealand, Quotable Valuation, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand and the Department of Building and Housing. It also incorporates mapping courtesy of Google, including the recently launched Google StreetView for New Zealand, and encourages user-generated content.

The company hopes zoodle.co.nz will help consumers make informed decisions. Alistair Helm who is Managing Director of zoodle.co.nz and CEO of realestate.co.nz said:

“We know what people want and need to know when house-hunting, what’s most important in helping them make what is likely to be the most significant purchasing decision of their lives. Zoodle provides consumers with an, informative, intuitive, interactive resource, one that will be of great benefit to those looking to buy a home in an emerging buyer’s market.”

The launch of zoodle.co.nz, and its links to realestate.co.nz suggest a strong start to the year for the New Zealand number two player.

REA Group exits New Zealand Market

In November last year the REA Group made a decision to exit the residential New Zealand market, and close down allrealestate.co.nz. They still retain their commercial portal, realcommercial.co.nz.

After announcing the closure, the REA Group entered into a marketing agreement that saw traffic from their allrealestate.co.nz portal re-directed to realestate.co.nz.

At the time, Alistair Helm, CEO of realestate.co.nz, said “This alliance is great news for New Zealand’s real estate agents and consumers; because together with the REA Group we can run a much stronger real estate web portal than if we continued to compete as two separate portals. We believe this will mean a more efficient and cost competitive solution for the real estate industry as compared to all other media options.”

realestate.co.nz have seen their web traffic rise ever since. Many speculate that realestate.co.nz will now overtake market leader trademe.co.nz.

realestate.co.nz

In a post to propertyportalwatch.com, realestate.co.nz CEO Alistair Helm spread some good news for agents, saying:

“I can categorically state that we will not be increasing our subscription fees in 2009.”

Google Street View

Last December Google Street View became available in New Zealand, and all the major portals have incorporated it into their mapping functionality.

First on the Street View bandwagon were property portal market leader trademe.co.nz and number two player realestate.co.nz, plus nz.open2view.com who all introduced the application on Tuesday, the day the application launched.

House hunters can now use the application to visualise the street and surroundings. It provides a street by street view of the whole country, available with a 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic street-level view.

While many have raised privacy concerns about Google Street View, it is an invaluable resource for homehunters, and provides non-photoshopped and more impartial visual information than a real estate agent’s photos might do. For instance, Street View will reveal not only the house for sale or rent, but the neighbours, and the outlook. People caught on Google’s cameras have had their faces blurred to prevent their identity from being revealed.

Until the change this week, trademe.co.nz had previously used SMAPs. SMAPs ran on a back-end created by Wellington company Project X, and a front-end developed by an inhouse trademe.co.nz team.

trademe.co.nz’s head of commercial, Mike O’Donnell , told The National Business Review: “We had a lot of positive feedback about SMAPs from our members, but the fact is that mapping is not our core business and Google‘s better at innovating in this area.”.

O’Donnell also said that despite initial resistance to the function when SMAPs were first introduced 2 and half years ago, uptake had been improving. Useage has risen from only 18% of listings having this feature when SMAPs were first launched, to 51% of listings using Google Street View as of this week.

The Google Street View photos were taken by cameras mounted on cars, which took a year to circle New Zealand covering all areas except Hokitika and Greymouth, where bad weather prevented images from being taken.

Google Street View is already used by other property portals in Australia, the US, France and Japan.

With the exit of allrealestate.co.nz from the New Zealand market and the redirection of their traffic to realestate.co.nz, what does this mean for New Zealand real estate agents?

Last month it was announced the allrealestate.co.nz would be closing its operations and redirecting its traffic to the realestate.co.nz site. This can be either good news or bad news for New Zealand real estate agents. Good news in that you now only have to advertise on one site to get to a broader audience however bad news in that there is more concentrated power in the hands of realestate.co.nz.

On balance, I think that this is good news for New Zealand real estate agents as long as realestate.co.nz doesnt increase the cost of its subscriptions. I dont believe that they will and this believe is backed up by the words of Alistair Helm, the CEO of realestate.co.nz in a recent comment he posted on www.propertyportalwatch.com.

“I can further confirm that this move is in the best interest of the consumer – who get a far more comprehensive single portal and for the industry a more valuable industry owned site. The principle of the site has always been to safeguard and protect the industry from the profit motives of the major media owned competitors – we maintain and will into the future a very cost competitive and highly transparent subscription model – $200 per office per month – no discounts.”

The real benefit for New Zealand agents is that they now will receive more leads for the same price that they were paying before. Historically realestate.co.nz was receiving around 250k to 300k unqiue visits per month. With the redirection of the allrealestate.co.nz URL and the links on the realestate.com.au site to realestate.co.nz, traffic should increase to over 400,000 unique visitors per month so assuming email and phone call leads are generated at the same rate, agents should receive between 30% and 50% more leads for the same price.

I am expecting that traffic to the realestate.co.nz site will increase as the New Zealand public become more aware of the fact that realestate.co.nz has the broadest range of listings for sale and rent – by a significant margin. This is also good for New Zealand agents as this should also increase leads.

Now the challenge for New Zealand agents is twofold. Firstly, how to make sure that the listings they advertise on realestate.co.nz are the best they possibly can be and secondly, how can they stand out from the crowd – ie how can an agent make sure that their listings and their brand stands out from their competitors on realestate.co.nz.