For the real estate industry, map based search has been launched by Google and has created some waves in certain markets internationally.

For property seekers and interested investors – there are emerging tools to look forward to, which should help in the coming year (certainly feasible given technological pace of change!).

Firstly there is Augmented Reality – the ability through mobile applications to create a “heads up display” when you “photograph” a property. The concept is simple in that it stitches together GPS location with compass orientation and then matches it to property data. The company Layer is already seeing their application deployed in Holland on the property website Funda.

Added to this technology is the announcement today by Google of another application from their frenetically paced Google Labs. This is the area of Google responsible for over 200 applications over the past decade as they have deployed their veritable army of technologically advanced engineers to come up with game changing applications.

The latest app is called Google Goggles and using the new Google Android smart phone allows a seamless photo search capability for books, products, places and people (business cards only at this stage, although photo recognition software for people must be just around the corner)!

The key application for property search could emerge through a combination of Google Goggles and / or Augmented Reality as a capability which Zoodle has ambition to offer whereby wherever you are in the country you can point your smart phone at any property and immediately on your screen receive valuable property information.

This information will naturally show basic property information augmented by a suite of information covering CV, valuation, sales history, local sales history, local amenities, some free and some charged for depending on content licenses. To this could naturally be added any details of the property if it is currently being marketed by an agent. As ever the scope is only ever limited by our imagination and the source data.