Over a year ago, Google started incorporating real estate search into Google Maps in the US. Now Australia gets the feature.

"Increasingly, people are heading online when looking for a new house to rent or buy, and from today, we’re adding the ability to search for properties on Google Maps," says Product Manager Andrew Foster on the Google Australia Blog. "We’ve worked with partners across the real estate industry to provide up-to-date listings, which you can search for directly from the Google Maps search box."

When a user enters a query like "real estate crows nest," and clicks through to the real estate listings, a marker will appear for each available listing. It’s not a bad way to find property listings with a nice geographic view.

"This also means you can perform a search and see all the properties for sale close to, for example, a local school you’re interested in your kids attending," says Foster. "You can click on each marker and each small circle to get more detailed information about the property, including the listing agent’s website and contact details."

In addition to seeing the listings all over the map, you can narrow your search by criteria, just like other real estate sites. You can enter your price range, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, garages, etc.

For those actually looking for property, Google suggests also checking out the area with street view, and looking at the transit info on Google Maps. The resources are there. You might as well give them a try. You can do the same in the US of course.