Google Adds Real Estate Listings to Google Maps

There is some big news coming from the Google team in Australia today — real estate listings are now integrated in Google Maps. Previously, you had to navigate to the Housing section of Google Base to find real estate listings on Google. Now, you can browse real estate listings from inside the Google Maps interface. Exposing real estate listings inside Google Maps (which has way more traffic than Google Base) is likely to instantly drive up the number of referrals to their listing partners’ sites. The service was rolled out in Australia first, but I can already see the new real estate search options in a couple US cities I tested (Boston and Seattle).

Here is an example search with a few filters selected in Boston (click for larger version):

Clicking on the more info link of an individual listing brings up a screen that looks like this:

Here is the introductory video:

How does this impact you? If you are an agent or broker and not currently syndicating your listings to Google, you’re certainly missing out on some exposure to home buyers. Here is their FAQ if you have questions about how to get up and running. Sure, buyers may not naturally think to use Google Maps to find real estate listings, but Google is the largest game in town in terms of traffic; I’m sure they can and will figure out plenty of ways to drive more traffic to the real estate search experience now that it’s integrated inside Google Maps.

More coverage:

• Search Engine Land
• Property Portal Watch
• Mashable