Danny's post from earlier today about Google possibly offering real estate listings that incorporate Google Maps in addition to his mentions of Oneonemap (UK only) and HousingMaps (U.S. only, powered by craigslist data) reminded me of a brief article I recently read in Business 2.0 discussing a new service named HomePages that's available at this point for selected areas of the U.S. HomePages takes local home sale listings, recently sold listings (useful), and places them onto aerial images that you can zoom in and out of. Cool but it gets cooler.
The service is free for users with revenue coming from real estate agents who list on the site. According to a HomePages spokesperson, the database utilizes MLS (multiple listing service) data as well as listings from other aggregators. Alerts are also available. You're also able to filter in/out, town info (crime data, etc), school info, local parks, restaurants, government buildings, and more. HomePages is operated by HouseValues Inc. of Kirkland, Washington.
The aerial imagery comes from AirPhotoUSA, which was recently acquired by GlobeXplorer. Some of the local stats and data comes from OnBoard LLC, a company that aggregates stats from various sources and also markets its own products. In many respects (minus the real estate listings) it reminds me of TerraFly, a wonderful service (its been available for years) that provides aerial imagery and local data when you click on any spot the image. More about TerraFly here.
I'm going to take HomePages out for a spin and report back soon.
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