Any thoughts on Mapping the MLS?

[Vinnie Vacca]

I just subscribed with a company that takes the MLS and forms it into a map. It makes it easy to browse listings in the neighborhoods. I think it's great but I'm wondering if this will really attract more prospects. I've been marketing it to my database and my farming area and ut seems to be catching on. I haven't had any personal inquires yet but I've only had it for a week. It can be viewed at any of my sites or you can get the details on http://www.pdxhomequest.com/
Let me know what you think of it.

[webmaster]

Map search is "the next big thing" - whether it is or not remains to be seen, but as a builder of IDX searches all across the US and Canada I can say the response from visitors has been positive. You can do some really cool things with IDX data and mapping, check out www.thesarasotamls.com for some more inspiration.

[pcdoc]

It's an interesting new development, but....

Let's say I'm a prospective buyer, moving to a city because of a job transfer.

I'm looking at the google map and see an area where marker density is so intense that I wonder why all those folks are selling; airport noise, former landfill, toxic-waste dump, etc.

Does that place those properties at a selling disadvantage, will the sellers complain, is the local MLS liable for supplying the data?

IMO, it will take only one adverse comment for the local MLS to prohibit publication of their data on a google map.

Comments?

[MattL]

We have tossed this back and forth with our service since early last year, when Google Earth hit the scenes and some of the "we have nothing better to do" competitors began offering the feature.

The Google Earth bit seems to have largely been a flop; searches are too resource intensive and require you to whittle your search down primarily by location, while leaving no options for bookmarking, search alerts, etc.

We've considered offering either Google Maps or an in-house ArcServ platform, but are currently a bit strangled because our MLS does not provide geocoded data in its feed (although it claims that it will Real Soon™). We can geocode the properties ourselves (using an outside data provider), but you still only get about 90% accuracy, largely due to Realtors being creative with addresses, as well as some subtleties with addressing in the area (5S470 #4 Lincoln Bend is almost impossible to have mapped).

We did a few usability tests with real customers and the overall impression is that it's more valuable to Realtors than end users. Realtors already know the landscape and the price/location/age valuation of the properties, while real people prefer to see price/age/appearance within a location range.

IMHO, getting these systems to do showing route planning and to display commute times is far more valuable than the early stage searches.

-Matt

[frobn]

IMHO, getting these systems to do showing route planning and to display commute times is far more valuable than the early stage searches.

-Matt

I agree with much of what you say. I think that the legacy of google maps will be that it opened our imaginations for Web 2 and got us to think how the Web will drive business in the future, i.e. as a service for functional things like 'route planning and commute times'.

[wotech]

In regards to route planning and commute time--

this is something I'd REALLY like to implement, but I'm failing to find a graceful way to do it. Google Maps currently doesn't support routing or trip planning via its API. MSN Virtual Earth does, but Microsoft is so wishy-washy with it terms of use for commerical applications that I'm not sure if I want to put a bunch of time into developing something with it.

I'm really surprised google doesn't offer this service; i guess maybe they want to reserve trip planning and routing for their own pages where they can display ads?

what's everyone's take on this?

[MattL]

Yahoo! and Google are royalty-based services, so they have to pay NavTeq each time a user requests driving directions.

MapQuest offers routing through their OpenAPI, but you're limited to 5K per day.

VirtualEarth offers it through their API, though I'm still not clear on the terms. It's been a quick year in which Microsoft went from charging $10K for access to MS Maps vs. free as VirtualEarth (in its 3rd API revision already).

Owning your own ArcInfo WebServ platform server, of course, would allow you to do it, but that's a ~$50K investment for the licensing, hardware, and data. BUT, you'd have a solid system and could do lots of the custom nifties that no one else can (like proximities to starbucks, etc.).

-Matt

[langard]

Google supports routing/driving directions for no charge. I'm using it on the agents' profile pages for the URL in my profile. Clicking the "map" icon on any agent's page will get you what you want. Commute times, no. Estimated travel times, mapping and exact directions yes. Just click the marker. It just takes a free Google key for access.

You can add all the markers you like to the script, even with a database call (which I'm doing on this one although it is a single marker in this case). If the markers overlap, you can change the default zoom or customize the markers themselves to display smaller.

So far as trip planning, we just publish the lat/lon coords for each location and let people GPS them on their own for any of a number of other apps.

[MattL]

Google supports routing/driving directions for no charge. I'm using it on the agents' profile pages for the URL in my profile. Clicking the "map" icon on any agent's page will get you what you want. Commute times, no. Estimated travel times, mapping and exact directions yes. Just click the marker. It just takes a free Google key for access.

The issue is not basic driving directions -- we all know Google does that. I use XML/XSLT for smaller customized maps. The bigger value is multi-point routing and distance calculations, which Google does not offer via API. You can lead to Google's driving directions, but you cannot get the data from them (implicitly) or modify them.

In my ideal world (and the tangent we'd gotten off to), a visitor will be able to look at a listing, and it'll give the information:

* This home is 6 miles (12 minutes) from Bob's office
* This home is 3 miles (5 minutes) from Mary's office
* This home will add 8 minutes to your showing schedule

And I wasn't implying that Google charges for routing, I was trying to explain why Google doesn't offer wholesale access to routing -- because they have to pay for it.

-Matt

[wotech]

so what solutions are there for doing mapping of things like that? (commute times, building a route by adding stops, etc).

i think MS virtual earth has something like this, but u gotta pay for MapPoint SLA to use it commercially i think.

langard, care to post a link to your site that has directions? does the site display the directions within your site?
the google api faq (http://www.google.com/apis/maps/faq.html) says that you can't get directions and routing via the API; that you have to just link to google. I'm assuming this is how yours works?