Google Enters the Real Estate Business

You knew it was only a matter of time before Google started making real use of all those real estate listings in Google Base. Erick Schonfeld from Business 2.0 reports today:

As anticipated, Google is now in the real-estate listings business.  If you do a regular search for "real estate" or other similar keywords on Google, two new search boxes will pop down allowing you to refine your search by loaction or listing type ("for rent" or "for sale").  Then you get taken to a Google Base page with the listings plotted on a Google Map (see above).

What does this mean to you? Well, if you’re selling a house, you might want to think about getting the listing into Google Base. If you’re buying, Google’s going to continue to make it easier and easier for you to have one place to search for whatever you’re looking for — including your next house.

And if you’re an traditional real estate agent, there’s suddenly a very powerful, very visible company attempting to disrupt the market. Google’s certainly no Zillow.