GOOGLE UK PROPERTY LISTINGS RUMOURED

Google is rumoured to be in talks with British estate agents to add UK property listings to its maps service, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Such a move would increase the threat Google poses to property portals that was first created when the search engine launched a similar service for Australia in August. The UK version will reportedly launch in early 2010 and follow a similar model to the Australian site, which allows estate agents to list properties for free.

UK agent Douglas & Gordan has been in discussions with Google about the service and commercial director Ed Mead told the Financial Times: “It looks very simple. If it stays free, then Google has a massive winner on its hands as it will get the backing from estate agents currently paying for rival sites.”

Google has so far refused to comment.

Shares in the market leading UK portal Rightmove fell 9.6% after the Financial Times report was published Wednesday 2 December. However, Rightmoves's commercial director, Miles Shipside, downplayed the situation.

“As a pure search engine, Google’s offering would appear to differ to the full service we have established for our users and agents," he said. "This can be seen in the property site that Google have already launched in Australia.

“Google is pre-eminent as a way of searching for information. But when people know what they want and want to source see quality information clearly presented they turn to websites such as Amazon for books and CD’s, Ebay for auctioned collectibles, Autotrader for cars and Rightmove for property. There is no conflict between what these sites do and what Google does. Google have not launched a property portal in Australia. They have simply allowed properties to be searched on a map.”

This is what Scott Picken from IPS has to say - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p6bP6Saf-g