We know virtual tours and photographs accomplishes two of these tasks. But how  can a local environment be transported on the Internet? After all, we are referring to the WORLD wide web.

How is it possible for buyers to view the surrounding neighborhood?

How can they view the location of :

• Schools
• Shopping areas
• Houses of worship
• Transportation
• Post Offices
• Museums

The answer is  Geo-tagging .

So what is geo-tagging? Geo-tagging is embedding geographical information into your photos or videos. It is assigning an address to  your pictures and videos. It is placing your listing(s) on a map. Immediately you are making the Internet local.

How do I geo-tag?

Simply put -  add a physical address when you upload your picture or video. Geo-tagging, like tagging has its own input area. As you input the address the exact location will be targeted on a map. Suddenly you are making the Internet local. You are bring the listing into someones backyard.  Embed addresses into both  your Flickr and Youtube accounts. Buyers can then see on a map where your listings are  located.

With the click of your mouse your customers can now see where the listing is located. Site visitors now have the ability to have an greater understand and feel for an area. They can now see themselves living in a particular area. Working with buyers  that are new to town ? Consider geo-tagging the homes  and surrounding areas  you are showing your customers.

In the fast pace world of all things Internet and social media there is a way to give a listing that “Home Sweet Home” feeling…geo-tag it!

Think about it – you could make a street level tour of a neighborhood for a potential buyer and incorporate it into your listing for people who aren’t familiar with the area.

In the world of maps, this may be a game changer. Watch the video and consider the possibilities for selling real estate!

Microsoft Street Slide

From the website: “The MapQuest 4 Mobile downloadable application provides easy access to Directions, Maps, and Local Search. With MapQuest 4 Mobile you also have the ability to integrate your saved maps and directions on MapQuest.com to the MapQuest 4 Mobile mobile application. To start saving your maps and directions generated at MapQuest.com”

Mapquest 4 Mobile

Via Lifehacker: MapQuest 4 Mobile features voice guidance, off-route assistance (it can automatically re-route you), point-of-interest integration, and plain-text search. (being able to simply search for a location by name is great.) The maps and directions are all downloaded as you go from MapQuest, so it’s also a very lightweight download (“offline” GPS apps are often several gigabytes); the downside to that is that it won’t work if you don’t have a data connection.

MapQuest 4 Mobile isn’t as polished as Google Maps Navigation. It doesn’t rotate the map based on the direction you’re heading, no Street View, no search by voice, no traffic information.

MapQuest 4 Mobile is a free download.

It’ll be interesting to see whether this competes at all (either in its current form or what it morphs into) with vehicle tracking systems in the future.

Google Map Buddy

I saw this on Lifehacker last week, a great Google Map tool for real estate.

Google Map buddy allows you to easily print out wall-sized satellite views of  a neighborhood for your listing, or make a full-page street map of the neighborhood for a buyer.  I can think of a few real estate applications for this tool.

Maybe use it to keep track of your company’s listings?

From the maker’s website:

* Capture Google Maps images offline and store them on your hard drive
* Print out maps of entire cities at zoom levels that would take hours to put together

If you have ever spent hours print screening your Google maps into Paint and stitching them together you NEED this program!

Map Buddy is a free download for Windows only.

Got any other ideas on how to use this for real estate?  Comment please…

Note the imagery is currently only available in San Jose and San Diego.

WOW is all I have to say. Think this will change the future of how consumers search for real estate online?

Halifax

before:

after:

Now that they have extremely broad coverage, I expect we’ll start to see more agent and brokerage web site integrations over the next 6 months. If you’ve recenty added the imagery to your web site or are thinking about adding it with your next redesign, please leave a comment with your feedback.

Previous Geek Estate Street View coverage:

• Now Available: Google Street View via API
• Google Street View — Too Close for Comfort?
• Google StreetView Expands
• New Cities Added to Google StreetView

Google Map Maker is a significant step in our ongoing efforts to engage Google Maps users and equip them with an easy-to-use tool to build high quality maps of their neighborhoods, cities and countries. Map Maker allows you and your peers to add, edit and moderate most features you see on maps including roads, lakes, parks, points of interest, businesses, cities and localities. You will be able to trace many of these features using satellite images; as you trace, maps are immediately updated.

Currently, the feature is only available in some regions of the world, likely so that Google can learn more about the quality of contributions and gauge whether or not this is something they can implement throughout Google Maps. Below are the regions currently “editable”:

Cyprus, Iceland, Pakistan, Vietnam and the Caribbean nations of: Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and Trinidad & Tobago.

OpenStreetMap and Wikimapia are other websites that allow individuals to collaboratively edit maps.

[via Mashable]