Top > Business > 2006 > January > 2006-01-11

Making Apartment Hunting Easier

Searching for an apartment in any city, especially Manhattan, is one of the most difficult projects to take on. One company has been making efforts to help prospective buyers through the web. And they have just made their business a whole lot better by integrating themselves with Google, one of the top search engines on the World Wide Web. City Cribs, the popular housing marketplace for New York City apartment and home rentals and sales, launches Cribs Map?, integrated with the popular Google Maps functionality.

City Cribs takes its home search to the next level by integrating the visual contextual elements of Google Maps with its comprehensive real estate database. With the new viewing interface, "mash-ups" allow the home seeker to search for New York City apartments and homes on a map, complete with property information, then link to receive full details for each listing. Users are able to filter their Cribs Map? results by selecting a borough, property type, price and desired number of bedrooms. Once a request is entered, each apartment or house location is then overlaid onto a Google map.

Each listing is displayed as a pushpin, and by clicking on the pushpin, a small window pops up with the property details, price and a thumbnail image. Real-estate agents, landlords, buyers and renters alike can reap the benefits of City Cribs. The detailed Cribs Map? is helpful to agents and landlords by offering additional exposure to their real estate offerings on New York?s favorite housing marketplace at no additional charge. Because of popular demand, City Cribs will soon add New Jersey, Los Angeles and Miami to its service. It plans to cover all major metropolitan U.S. cities in the near future.