RCG’s Zearch is Released!
Dustin on 04 25, 2006
Robbie has just released what may be the most addictive home search tool I have every used!
Search Tool Codename: Zearch!
Some obvious highlights include:
- Dynamic map of color-coed listings
- Geocoded Rain City Posts
I know the search is addictive because earlier today I showed this to a friend who is in the market to buy a home in Seattle and we couldn’t pull ourselves away from bouncing around the map. To get an idea of what I mean, follow this link to the detail page of this listing in Ballard.
You should see a few things:
- Photos of the listing
- Lots of color dots
- Raindrops
The color dots all represent different homes that are currently on the market in the nearby area. Light blue dots mean the house is far below the average listing price while dark red mean it is far above the average listing for that area. The addicting part is that you can click on any of these dots to bring up the home details (and photos) for that home. With my friend sitting beside me, we kept searching for light blue dots amid lots of red hoping to find a “deal”. Very interesting stuff.
You might also notice on the map that there are some raindrops. These represent Rain City Guide blog posts that have been geocoded. This is subtle, but very powerful, as it essentially represents a mapped-based archive page for Rain City Guide’s posts. The cool part about this is that as you’re searching for background on a home, you can see what RCG posts have said about the neighborhood! And as we continue to add more neighborhood content on Rain City Guide, I’ll continue to geocode the posts, which will automatically add more background data to the home search tool…
[photopress:zearch_screenshot.jpg,full,centered]
What else has Robbie done?
For starters, he didn’t mess with the stuff that works well. You can still use the site to:
- Export of home search results to RSS so you can get updated homes that fit your criteria directly in your blog reader
- Export of home search results to Google Earth
- Valuation tool (including a “Zestimate” comparison)
- Search by remarks (i.e. fireplace, tudor)
- Search by school district
Some other things to notice about the new detail page is that whenever you move around on the map, all the nearby active listings show up. More impressively, you can also toggle on the nearby schools, gas stations, grocery stores, and other points of interest associated with every day living. Again, the color coded pushpins show that homes in Medina are bright hues of red, many homes in Renton are purple, while most of the homes in this area of Tacoma are blue. So much cool stuff, so little time!
On a side note, today was my last day as a transportation engineer! For the next few weeks I’m unemployed! 
About the Author: Dustin Luther
- Author's website: http://www.raincityguide.com/
- More posts by Dustin
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14 Responses to “RCG’s Zearch is Released!”
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Well, gosh, now I want one. That’s an addictive tool. And, beyond being graphically very clear and easy to both use and understand, it works very well.
Good luck in your temporary unemployment!
Linsey,
You can definitely get one! Robbie built the tool on Rain City Guide as a demonstration project with the confidence that other agents will pay him to build out similar tools for them!
Please feel free to contact him at any time!
Robbie,
You’ve done a fantastic job!
Let me know when you’re ready to add demographics, community info, school profiles, test scores, etc. We’ve got all these ready to go.
I’m believe you’ve got my contact info.
Bert
Bert,
You can be sure I’ll be contacting you soon and asking for the “big database extra value meal, with bacon, to go”.
Thanks again!
Robbie
[...] RCG is perhaps the leader in RSS delivery of real estate data. If only I could implement this type of search … [...]
[...] SELECT * FROM MLS WHERE Remarks = ‘Whoa’ May 4, 2006 I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on how Rain City’s favorite MLS Search is implemented. I’m a little tired of thinking in computer languages (mostly T-SQL, C# and Javascript), so I figured I’d blog a bit in Geek English for a little while before I hit the compiler again. [...]
[...] The race for 2nd place has begun May 9, 2006 OK, I’m biased and I still believe that “Zearch” is currently King of the Hill of King County home searches. However, I’m willing to give credit where credit is due and say the distance between us and the rest of the pack got smaller today. [...]
This looks interesting but can one be built for the San Diego Area? I’m currently using a rather nice IDX solution that uses Google mapping and satalite coverage. I also happen to like the layering of road names on the map if you want. But my question is, can you also layer in the ’sold’ homes into this map to see what that area is going for?
If you can get me the data, I can probably build it for any market in the country. The problem with adding sold data is that the NWMLS is the only MLS in the country (that I’m aware of) that provides sold data to brokers for display on public websites. If your MLS doesn’t provide sold data, then you’re either S.O.L., forced to do a bad Zillow impression (using old county govt data) or forced to break MLS rules (which MLS’s tend to frown upon).
[...] There you go again – the MLS doesn’t scale June 23, 2006 Ever since Zearch, I’ve been bombarded with work to update or create MLS search web sites for various brokers & agents across the country. Because of this, I’ve had the opportunity to deal with another MLS in the Bay Area (EBRDI) and Central Virginia (CAARMLS). Before I begin another MLS rant (and cause the ghost of Gipper to quip one of his more famous lines), I want to say the IT staff at both EBRDI & the NWMLS have been helpful whenever I’ve had issues, and this primary purpose of the post is to shine a light on the IT challenges that an MLS has (and the hoops that application engineers have to jump through to address them). [...]
Hey how you are getting the geocode for a particular property.Am also having a small webapplication in which i would like to get the property location in geocode . From which database i can resolve the geocode corresponding to a patricular address.It will be helpfull for me if you can give me some idea related to this
Thanks
Boby
I’m getting the lat & long, by calling a geo-coding web service. Here’s some geo-coding web services that offer free samples…
Geocoder.us
Ontok
Yahoo
Google
Microsoft Virtual Earth
Microsoft Mappoint Web Service
If you want an address from a lat / long pair, then you need a reverse geo-coder (which is a different problem). I’d
Google for Reverse Geo-coding and experiment.
Robbie,
What’s up with recommending Google… Shouldn’t he try to “live” for Reverse Geo-coding? LOL!
Well, Google is a verb, Live Search is just a good search engine with a dull name. (Microsoft’s marketing dept needs to read Scoble more).
Actually, I’m trying to force the issue of Google losing it’s trademark protection.