Home : Blogs : Bobby Carroll - Real Estate Marketing : Real Estate Web Marketing Blog

Use Your Mouse to Drive BUY a House!

So can you really use your mouse to buy a house? I wouldn't recommend it but you can drive by homes and decide if the neighborhood is to your liking. Thanks to Google's new Street View API, your real estate consumers can remain in the comfort of their home or office and use their desktop or laptop to cruise the streets of 40 cities mapped out by Google with their 360 degree camera. Now your real estate consumers can gain a totally unique perspective on the lay of the land in your area.

Junk Cars on Cinder Blocks?

Besides, isn't driving around town so old fashion. Now you can use the power of your computer mouse to checkout potential neighborhoods for junk cars on cinder blocks or how close a property is to your grocery store and other conveniences. With this tool even out of town buyers can test drive your area to determine if it is acceptable. Just keep in mind the map may be dated. Here in the greater Raleigh area, our streets were photographed about 6 to 8 months ago.

Dakno Clients Among the Nation's First!

As one of the first real estate web design companies to offer this revolutionary technology, we released this mapping tool to Kevin Tomlinson's South Beach real estate website first, next to Linda Craft's Raleigh real estate website, followed by Jim and Meg Zoller's website in Houston, TX. To those special Dakno clients who are located in the 40 cities in the US that offers Street View, this update will be “pushed” to all those existing Dakno client sites soon. Our Google Neighborhood maps are offered on all Dakno Custom Websites as well as the more economical SwiftSites. Because of the FutureProof Agent BackDoor site editor, technology upgrades like the Google Street View API are provided as a standard component of all Dakno Agent Backdoor websites.

In an effort of full disclosure, Realbird first offered the Google Street Mapping technology in single-property websites and IDX provider Diverse Solutions included this technology in their IDX products on Monday of this week as well.

Go For a Test Drive

So click on Kevin, Linda or Meg's link, take a test drive and tell us what you think!

Helping you create great websites,

Bobby

Your Real Estate Marketing Partner

P.S. Be sure to visit my blog on the Crystal Coast!

Posted by Bobby Carroll - Real Estate Marketing on 04/03/2008 07:02 PM

Comments (18)

google street view

This post has been included in North Carolina Information Carteret County, NC Information Emerald Isle, NC Information
Post is included in group: Active Rain Newbies
Post is included in group: Realtors®
Post is included in group: The Art Of Marketing You
Post is included in group: Rainmaking - Internet Marketing Strategies
Post is included in group: e-PRO Internet Technology

18 Comments on Use Your Mouse to Drive BUY a House!

APR

2008

Yea... The new google stuff is awesome! It's a little scary too... But it's cool because buyers can really get a feel for what a neighborhood is like!

It is great!! I love it, a Realtor in our office showed me it a week ago and I use it all the time. I check out the house and the neighborhood before listing appointments. If available I may link to it when I send detailed information about a property to my clients.

Hi Jonelle - Awesome is right. Now site visitors can stay on a single website and access these technology tools to checkout areas. That is the really strong benefit to this technology - it's a time saver!

Greetings Debbie - You are correct... agents and consumers both can take advantage of this great tool.

I think I read about this on FoREM - sounds very cutting edge, and great for your clients. Kevins blog / site is visually amazing, a treat for the eyes.

Hi Jason...You did! And Kevin's website and blog are definitely "eye candy"!

Bobby, I like it and it looks great. hey remind Brad to let me know about an upgrade to a full site.

Bobby - Very nice implementation and sites! Thanks for the credit.

-- Zoltan
RealBird.com

Interesting. But I frequently don't let the address show on my listings. I started doing this because I wanted the potential buyer to have a reason to actually contact me. They don't have to work with me, but there's no way to provide ALL the information on a house, online. AND if it's a property that is available to rent, then I'm the only agent they can work with. The commission is too low to split.

Bobby.... Looks great..... I want to research it a bit more.... Thanks for sharing

Hi Bobby- Good info, and I will go look at Kevins site:) I'm swamped right now.....now with sales though so dang if I know what I do all day LOL :) Hope all is well.

APR

2008

Bobby - Dang . . . I didn't even know you put this on my site. I have to go now and check it out. You and everyone at Dakno are absolutely awesome!!!!! I'm sooooooooo excited. I'll talk to you soon!

Hi Meg - We just posted the enhancements yesterday evening on our Dakno blog. Sorry to surprise you. You're one of the lucky ones to have Google Street View available in your area. Your site visitors are sure to love you for it with this new technology capability all on one site!

APR

2008

Hi Bobby - your AR page looks great. I need to jump on that bandwagon too. Thanks for the tip about Google Street Views. Isn't it amazing what they can do?

MAY

2008

Hi Bobby,

Cool feature and kudos for being up on technology. So many realtors are failing to embrace it and their customers are missing its advantages. I run a Chicago based technology company that also is making use of Google's steetview http://www.peekacity.com/ allows buyers to look around a neighborhood select the different amenities and print out a PDF report. It also includes Google's Streetview and can be framed directly into your pages. While the Chicago streetviews are a bit short on palm trees, users love being able to give their clients concise reports. We aren't in you area yet, but when we are. I would love to have a technology friendly user like you to get us started.

Click here is how our product looks framed into a page.

JUN

2008

I suggest to try as well StreetView on the website of Fizber to explore city neighborhoods. It feels as if you're walking down the street!

Hi Nike - Thanks for the comment. I agree. Using Google's Street View is like taking a virtual stroll down the streets of an area. It really helps home buyers become familar with the area without ever leaving the comfort of their office or their home. With gas prices so high, all the more reason to search for property online first, then narrow your choices and hit the "live" streets.

JUN

2008

Yes!! Street View is a good idea!!! I'd recommend you to look through another resource. My favourite is Street View service on www.Fizber.com.

Leave a response…

Name:

Email:
(optional)

Comment:

What does the graphic say?