Google Maps Street View comes to Seattle, and more…
November 5th, 2008Posted by Jim Reppond
The area covered is significantly larger than just Seattle. It stretches form north of Everett to South of Tacoma and as far east as North Bend. While it doesn’t cover the whole Puget Sound area, it does reach over to Bremerton and tries to include the most traveled areas.
This may be of immense help to buyers and real estate agents to help give people the trouble of physically going to the property when they can do a “virtual drive by” to get a pretty good idea if it’s the type of neighborhood they are looking for.There is so much to be said for this type of perspective. Here are a few instances when someone might want to use Street View to find out information not readily available in the listing or elsewhere:
- Is it a busy street? You can tell if it’s a major arterial on atraditional map. But Street View will show you now many lanes, if it’s yellow-striped, etc.
- Is the neighborhood kept up well? I always tell clients to look around and see if neighbors keep up their yards, mow the grass, keep their houses painted, etc. Pride of ownership of the neighbors says a lot about what kind of people they are.
- Does the house have privacy? Often when I take a client to a home, they can tell before we get out of the car that the bedroom looking over the street, or exposed windows next to a nearby street corner is not going to work for them.
These are just a few examples of where Google Maps Street View is redefining the term “curb appeal” for real estate. Next comes the 3-D integration of Google Earth! I can’t wait!
UPDATE:
It appears that Apple and Google will enhance the Google Maps to include the Strret View functionality on the iPhone with the upcoming iPhone 2.2 operating system update. (see screenshot of beta below courtesy of iphoneyap.com)
3 Comments Add your own
1. Jim Reppond | November 21st, 2008 at 5:09 am
11-21-2008 UPDATE
Apple just released the iPhone 2.2 update last night. As expected Goolge’s Street View is included as part of Google Maps with this update.
This Google Maps update contains other improvements, including the following:
- Enhancements to Maps
- Public transit and walking directions
- Display address of dropped pins
- Share location via email
Overall, the update has a lot of goodies in it. It’s free and recommended for both the original iPhone, and the newer 3G version, (unless you have done a jailbreak hack:-)
2. Dwellicious - NEW Real Es&hellip | November 25th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
[…] I’m not going to repeat what Benn from AgentGenius said here. But I want to point out that there is a lot of thought put into these tabs, and what they can do. Even in beta Dwellicious makes it very easy for sharing on Facebook, MySpace, and publishing on WordPress blogs. I’ve heard Twitter and other social sites are on the way. I would guess that embed codes for Postlets, Point2Agent, and Agent e-Flyers will be coming soon as well. By integrating Panoramio geo-coded area photos under the listing photos, relocating buyers can get a visual flavor of the neighborhood. Google’s Street View is front-and-center. As I mentioned in my “Street View Comes to Seattle” blog, Google is taking understanding the neighborhood to a whole new level. […]
3. Jaickycynczoop | January 3rd, 2009 at 6:06 am
bknbmxzpxjqihriawell, hi admin adn people nice forum indeed. how’s life? hope it’s introduce branch
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