In Real Estate, Being There Is Virtually Everything John Chang, director of interactive marketing for the Seattle, Washington-based real estate giant John L. Scott, says the Pacific Northwest brokerage has just introduced Microsoft’s new mapping technology—Virtual Earth—to almost unbelievable acclaim.
By Lesley Geary
RISMEDIA, July 17, 2006—”This bird’s-eye technology is just amazing. It lets buyers look at a house at a 45-degree angle and put it in total context. So if there are 18-wheelers driving by on the next block over you see them.”
He adds that the new mapping feature, which goes beyond satellite imagery, has been a blockbuster addition for John L Scott. “It has been fantastic. Since the first month that we launched the Virtual Earth platform, Web traffic is up 12% and returning people are up 45%. This is just huge. And perhaps the best part for us is that what we have found is that people are looking at 25 times more property listings through the map interface.”
Chang believes the new mapping technology allows his firm to take “a lot of the wild goose chase out of real estate.” He says that’s because in the past a buyer may have seen a house on the Internet and thought the pictures looked great, but that once the buyer went with the agent to the house and saw that the house was just a block away from or next door to an industrial park, the buyer would not even want to go into the house. “Bird’s-eye lets people see first hand where the house is. If there’s a warehouse next door the buyer won’t waste the Realtor’s time going over there. It’s just a win-win situation all the way around,” says Chang.
The same rings true at Loopnet, the largest U.S. online commercial real estate listing service. Loopnet’s Chief Product Officer Jason Greenman says, “The real estate market has been waiting for this. Since the mid-90s online map searches have been available but they weren’t very good. This has taken that mapping concept to a huge, new level.” He says the feedback from users has been “ecstatic from day one!”
Loopnet Director of Product Management Terrence Mylonas agrees and says the key to the Virtual Earth platform, which the listing service has been using for the last seven months, is “The most important part of our business is connecting landlords with tenants and buyers with sellers and because of this bird’s-eye technology we can deliver that much more quickly. It means that more property gets seen, more people phone and more deals get done. It’s that simple and that important.”
Both Loopnet executives say the feedback has been “fantastic.” They add, “It’s a game changer for selling commercial real estate. You can see a lot of the details of each particular building with this imagery. There is a lot of work on the back end but it’s a very natural way to look at a city. I mean for people looking at a building this software is almost as good as being there. We definitely backed the right horse going with Microsoft.”
Alex Daley, a technical evangelist for Microsoft’s Virtual Earth business unit, says the company is very pleased with the industry reception. “The feedback has been excellent. Customers are apparently coming to the firms a lot further along in the sales cycle.” He adds that the bird’s-eye technology is “very powerful but easy to use.”
“Traditionally mapping software was very complex and what we’ve done with Virtual Earth is to package it up in a simple platform that’s easy to use.”
Daley adds, “This new technology offers real value for real estate companies. It gives people searching for a house or a building on the Internet a unique perspective that would be almost impossible to get any other way. With bird’s-eye mapping it’s almost as good as being there.”
The Technical Evangelist says Microsoft has captured bird’s-eye level views of 33% of the U.S so far and expects to have 80% of the U.S. available for by 2008. |
