Trade Me holds off on Google lists

Trade Me has no immediate plans to upload its property listings to Google Maps, says chief executive Jon McDonald.

Google launched a service last week that lets internet users search Google Maps for properties for sale. Searches can be narrowed down by price or type of property.

Mr McDonald says Trade Me holds regular discussions with Google and would keep an open mind while seeing how Google's service develops, before deciding on any partnership.

Google will not charge for listings. It is instead hoping to profit from selling advertisements displayed above and below the search results.

"It has always been our focus at Google to create products which offer value to users first and foremost, and worry about monetisation later," spokeswoman Annie Baxter says.

Realestate.co.nz, a website part-owned by the Real Estate Institute, has agreed to supply Google with tens of thousands of listings provided by agents that advertise properties on its website. These include Harcourts, LJ Hooker and Ray White.

Chief executive Alistair Helm says agents are still sometimes coy about providing the full addresses of properties they are selling. That means realestate.co.nz can upload only about 60 per cent of the 110,000 properties that it has on its books at any one time.

The real estate industry's culture is changing and Mr Helm expects incomplete address data will become a "non-issue" in a couple of years' time.

Mr McDonald says this is one of the considerations that has prevented Trade Me from providing its own map-based search product for real estate.

"If you look at the number of properties where full address details are provided, it is not as many as you would think. It means you just can't position that property on a map and that directly impacts on how well you can present a map that shows where properties are."

Mr Helm and Mr McDonald doubted map-based search products would make it less likely house hunters would search for properties outside their preferred locations.

"Real estate has been around a long time and the dynamics of play there around location are well- entrenched in human nature," Mr McDonald says. "I don't think we will see any sea-change."

- © Fairfax NZ News