Harcourts Launches Australasian First with Google Maps

Harcourts' ongoing leadership in the highly competitive world of e-real estate has seen it once again revolutionise the industry with the exciting launch today of its Google-powered mapping systems on www.harcourts.co.nz property listings.

Harcourts’ Chief Information Officer Jason Wills believes Harcourts is the first real estate group throughout Australasia to provide this sophisticated mapping system with its property listings providing the option of street map, detailed satellite image, or a hybrid of the two with street names overlaying satellite imagery to pinpoint exactly where each property listing is.

Having tested the service, Mr Wills enthused that the reaction to it has been incredible. “Our testers can’t stop raving about it and we are confident our website visitors will be as equally enthusiastic. There is no doubt Google dominates the online world and to be able to provide the public with the incredible sophistication of such detailed satellite maps is one of the most exciting real estate website innovations to date.”

For over a decade, Harcourts has prided itself as an industry ground-breaker in real estate technology. It was the first real estate group in New Zealand to launch a website in 1996 which since then has undergone several relaunches with increasingly innovative options, most of which have been developed inhouse by Harcourts’ now fulltime technology team of ten across Australasia.

With over 600,000 visitors to www.harcourts.co.nz each month, the website has consistently been the most visited real estate company website for a number of years, which Mr Wills said the team had worked hard to maintain due to the company’s focus on technology in order to meet consumer demand for innovation and convenience.

“Our initiatives have often been firsts, then quickly adopted across the industry making them the norm. That includes everything from multiple photos on property listings, early mapping systems, Chinese and other language options, right through to highly sophisticated ‘Personal Notifier’ which automatically emails registrants with properties meeting their criteria, and was later relaunched with the option to text people’s mobile phones directly.”

Mr Wills said these innovations have been a “win-win” for property sellers and buyers, and also provided valuable leading-edge tools for Harcourts consultants. Just back from a United States real estate technology conference last week, Mr Wills noted Harcourts was not only a dominant player in Australasia, but a world leader in a number of areas.

“For some years now I’ve been saying that the days of spending time in the car visiting house after house are gone. We know that increasing numbers of people are undertaking a large proportion of their research via real estate websites before only actually visiting a few properties to decide.”

Bryan Thomson, CEO of Harcourts New Zealand said those selling or buying property needed to ask the hard questions of any real estate company they were considering working with to ensure they had access to the tools required to get the job done.

Our clients take technology for granted with many automatically using websites as a primary source of instant and comprehensive information about property before even contemplating getting in the car. Who is going to wait a week for the weekend paper to find out what properties are for sale when that information is available within seconds from a comprehensive sophisticated real estate website?”

He added that while technology would never replace the skilled services of a real estate professional it was playing a crucial role in ensuring today’s top real estate performers provided an even better, faster and more comprehensive service.

“We see our investment in real estate technology as imperative to provide both the public with the best tools possible to ensure their real estate experience is productive and successful, as well as ensuring our own team can meet that expectation in their daily business."

harcourts news release
Tue, 01 Aug 2006