Google Street View
Those Google folks are always working hard to gather and index information. On occasion it relates to real estate and is actually directly useful in the buying and selling process. The ongoing rollout of the Street Views feature of Google Maps is a helpful tool for buyers interested in getting a sense of how houses fit into the overall neighborhood.
The blue roads on the above map show where Street Views are available. Some towns in our area have much better coverage than others. Farmington, New Britain, Newington, Weathersfield, Manchester, Windsor all have very broad coverage. Avon seems pretty good south of Route 44, and West Hartford is good west of Main Street. Hartford has basically no coverage and Simsbury is very weak.
Using the feature is quite easy, and like most new things I discover on the internet, a little addictive. Click on the “Street View” button at the top of a map to access the feature. Roads where the feature is available turn blue, and a little yellow dude appears on the map with a picture of the surrounding area. You can then rotate around 360 degrees as if you are standing right there in the middle of the road.
As an example of why this could be helpful, consider the picture below.
Did you know that there is a cul-de-sac in West Hartford that has Victorian-style homes that were built in the mid 1980s? They are unique in town, and if you came across one in isolation listed for sale on www.raveis.com, then you could use Google Street View to see that it’s not an odd duck dropped in the middle of 1960s-era split-level homes.
I got to wondering how they actually got all these pictures. Rumor has it that there is a van that drives around with camera mounted on the top. Details are sketchy. More effort has been exerted in identifying weird scenes and situations captured by the van as it photographs the country. Enjoy!
I’ve always found it odd that Google Street View only did about 1/2 of our town, but they did all of other less populous areas. Seems sort of random.
Anyway, I thought I’d also point out that the bird’s eye view of Microsoft’s Live Maps service is also an excellent tool: check it out. I find it superior to Google in some ways.
Yep, I use Microsoft’s Virtual Earth tool too. (Google’s tool makes me a little seasick at times) It does a pretty good job of letting you see what’s around an area. For example, you can usually tell if the house is in a solely residential area or mixed use. It’s another useful tool for folks relocating.
I also don’t understand Google’s priority of mapping areas. Hartford hasn’t been done at all, which I find annoying.
I’m glad someone picked up on this. I noticed that our neighborhood was “googlemapped” a few weeks ago. A very odd sensation. You can almost peek in the windows. But I agree its a very useful tool. I do like the aerial views of MSN’s site too. Yahoo and Mapquest are just behind the times.
BTW, nice blog too! My Connecticut Employment Law Blog is probably as much of a niche as you so it’s nice to see others taking the plunge too.
I had previously just found Google Street to be creepy (used it anyway though), but now there’s an actual practical application (beyond “hey, let’s see what Las Vegas looks like since we’ll never go there”). It’s good to be able to see if a place I’m interested in is right next to a boarded up crack house. This is probably most useful for people thinking of buying out-of-state where just driving or walking to the area doesn’t make sense when first looking.