Realestate.com.au are now trialling Google Maps, which is a sure sign that they will be dumping there mapping system altogether shortly. This comes just a few months after the the CEO of realestate.com.au Simon Baker pretty much poured cold water on mapping and real estate saying this on his weblog….CEO Corner

“We have all heard alot about real estate sites and mapping recently with many articles being written in newspapers and magazines. While some pundits may be seduced by the sexy maps, when it comes to those that really matter, the buyers and sellers visiting the real estate sites, it is pictures and slide shows that really count.”
I think it is a good sign as Realestate.com.au’s mapping system was pretty ordinary and developing their own custom solution would just waste millions of dollars, especially when there are solutions readily available for free that are so much better and will continue to improve.

This will just be the first stage of the mapping system and it does not warrant a review as yet as this was done fairly quickly, but as they release new features we should see a really good mapping system. I just hope the make it resizable!

Before the end of the year a new mapping website that shows amazing promise will be available and I have been given access to it. The new Australia Wide wite will be FREE for agents as the operators have decided they can make their money from advertisers who want to be where buyers are.

Domain.com.au recently launched its new website and to be honest, I really cannot see what they have got right! It isn’t that the site is not good, but it by no means an exciting development. The site has added Google Maps, which is interesting, but again it (as with all mapping developments) it is done with little to no thought of its user. For mapping to work it must take up most of the screen - at least from left to right. It is however an improvement on realestate.com.au’s poor (soon to be shelved I feel) mapping system.

The new domain.com.au site is not too bad, but they really need to think more of agencies and consumers if they are going to make any inroads into realestate.com.au’s portal and business.

The new site’s home page seems to have catered more to advertisers rather than agencies and users. One feels it is going to be a long few years in the residential space for domain.com.au.

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I know of at least one Australian Mapping site set to go live at the end of this month, and I was lucky enough to get a few hours of a sneak preview this past week.

The site still has some glitches, especially in the Firefox browser but the great features of this type of real estate portal cannot be ignored. Since posting some information a few weeks ago about mapping sites I have had quite a few emails.

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New mapping systems are popping up all over the place and many of the portals are scared of the impact these mapping systems may have on their revenues - not from agents - but from advertisers.

FREE mapping systems such as Google Maps and Live Local Maps are growing in maturity and allowing small shop developers to create what the industry calls ‘mash-ups’ allowing information such as property listings to be plugged into mapping and displayed within sites.

The problem for incumbent portals is that mapping systems require a clean interface for the user to get the best experience and having advertising/pop ups littered over the screen will only turn off visitors to the site. With a little bit of creativity their are ways around this but with portals such as realestate.com.au and domain.com.au receiving in excess of 20 million annually from advertisers it may be a thorny issue.

So what do the portals do about this? One way is to try and discredit these mapping sites as they become more popular (there are none in Australia or New Zealand at this point in time) another way is to get involved and test the waters so to speak.

Consumers will warm to mapping sites very quickly, once usability and speed are no longer an obstacle.

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Many Agents today would like to see a mapping system integrated into their web developments and there are some interesting developments on the horizon. However I will start with the difficulties in the current systems.
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