commercial real estate

For the moment, Microsoft has edged out Google in a battle to photograph the Earth.

I was impressed with Keyhole — a satellite imaging application that allows you to “fly over” and label satellite images, and has great potential for brokers, owners and the like interested in developing sexy marketing presentations. Google showed a lot of foresight in buying this company. They rebranded it Google Earth. Google Earth can give a “simulated” 3-D view by taking satellite photos that were taken from directly overhead and “tilting” them.

Google had a great innovation with its street view photography. In certain cities, you can get street level views of (primarily downtown) areas. [Microsoft actually did this first, but only in Seattle and San Francisco. I've read they may be moving to expand this].

Taking it to the next level are the “oblique” (ie three dimensional, taken from a 40 degree angle) aerial images from Pictometry. These images are acutally shot from light aircraft and are much more useful for real estate professionals.

You can view these images from free when you pick “birds eye view” from Windows Live Search Maps. You can go to a number of vendors on the web that sell high quality Pictometry images for $25 each. I use Mapmart.

With these birds eye images, I know longer have to pay hundreds of dollars and wait for days or weeks for a professional to fly and shoot my projects. If you are in the real estate business, you owe it to yourself to start using Pictometry images for prospecting and marketing efforts.