Get this widgetChicago real estate

TruliaSnapshot widget:

This one has been in the works for a while now.  You’ve probably heard of Trulia Snapshot, the project where you can see local homes for sale using an ultra-cool mapping feature.  You can even set the site to “auto-play” and the results will scroll for you.

We heard from tons of people who want to have Trulia Snapshot directly on their web site or blog.  Well now you can.  The TruliaShapshot widget allows you to build your own customized version of Trulia Snapshot and easily include it on your own site for your visitors.

Check out the example for Chicago above.  We even included the auto-play feature so people can sit back and watch the results scroll on your blog.

TruliaMiniStats widget:

One of the most popular sections of Trulia is the amount of local real estate statistics, trend and school information. Our users can easily find out what’s going on in their cities or neighborhoods and compare it to other areas. We even have charts that you can embed on your own sites and a great TruliaStats widget that shows an interactive chart of local home prices over the past year.

Our users have been asking us for a small and simple statistics widget, one that just shows the median price change for a particular city.  Our new TruliaMinistats widget is just that - a small and simple widget that shows the median price change, in both absolute dollars and in percentage, for any city in the US.  It’s a great local real estate tool that anyone can easily drop into their blog or website.

We’re super excited to add these widgets to the list of Trulia’s real estate tools for your website. These tools are free, easily embeddable on any web page and add great real estate content for website owners.

We can’t wait to see our users embedding these free widgets on their pages! If you’ve done so, please let us know the page on your site in the comments below.

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Americans are on the go now more than ever, and almost everyone takes their mobile phone with them everywhere. Its always been frustrating to get detailed information on your mobile phone from the internet. But the iPhone is redefining what can be be done on a phone and Apple’s competitors will have to keep up. That’s great news for consumers and will spur innovation.

I’m a big believer in mobile real estate search. I’ve definitely wanted to see homes for sale nearby when I’ve walked around or drove through a neighborhood. And when you’re actively in the market, finding Open House information wherever you are is super helpful. By bringing Trulia to mobile devices, we can help buyers, sellers and real estate professionals find very useful information when they want it. All of our mobile products are free from Trulia, although standard service rates may apply from your carrier.

Trulia on your iPhone

With Trulia on your iPhone, you can find homes for sale, including Open Houses, in just one tap from the home page using iPhone’s location awareness technology. Or you can create a custom search for the exact home you’re looking for. The results can be viewed on a map and you can email a property to a friend, save it to your phone, get driving directions from Google and even contact the listing agent directly from the phone.

Check out this video demo for more information:

Trulia on your phone

The iPhone is great but its certainly not the only mobile phone out there. And we couldn’t leave everyone else out in the cold! Trulia on your phone brings Trulia listings to your BlackBerry, Blackjack, Sony Ericsson, Nokia and many other devices from all the leading carriers. You can find homes for sale and the Open Houses near you or in another area, see the results on an interactive map, see a photo, share or save properties to your phone and call the listing agent directly for more information. We worked with our friends at LightPole, a leading mobile content platform, to bring you Trulia on your phone. You can see a list of supported mobile devices here.

Trulia in your car

Most people drive through the cities and neighborhoods they’re thinking about moving to before buying a home. Now you can use Trulia in your car to find homes for sale and Open House information while you’re on the road. Just search near your current location or a specific destination and see the results nearby. You get the property highlights, Open House information and listing agent contact info. You even get driving directions to help you through unfamiliar areas. Trulia in your car is built for the Dash Express GPS device.

Check out this video from Dash to get a feel for the Trulia in your car experience:

As a special bonus, Dash is making its device available for sale to Trulia users for $50 off the retail price ($249.99 instead of $299.99). Just use this promo code - TRULIAGIVE08 - when you contact Dash at (888) 949-DASH. All new customers get three free months of Dash service. The code is valid through 9/30/08. For more information, please contact Dash at the number above or visit their website.

The reception for these products from our users has been really great. And we definitely want to hear your ideas and suggestions for new Trulia Mobile products. Feel free to leave a comment on my blog or contact me directly (rcross at trulia dot com) with any feedback. Thanks!

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…And out of curiosity, will you be buying the Apple iPhone 3G today?

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This week Yahoo officially took the covers off its latest innovation in search with the launch of the Yahoo! Search Gallery. We’re proud to announce that Trulia has developed our own search enhancement application that adds color and content to Trulia search results on Yahoo!

With Yahoo!’s program (called “SearchMonkey”), website developers can create applications that enhance the search results on Yahoo!. Users add the enhancements they want from the gallery and, when they search on Yahoo!, they will see the enhanced results from those applications.

With the Trulia SearchMonkey application, users see photos, links to other relevant parts of Trulia and some additional information for certain pages directly in Yahoo! search. To add our enhancement from the Yahoo! Search Gallery page, click to Add Enhanced Results and then click to Try it out in Yahoo! Search.

Here’s an example of how it works: when you search on Yahoo for “Miami homes for sale”, the Trulia page for Miami real estate appears in the results. If you’ve added the Trulia SeachMonkey enhancement, you will see additional information for our page: a picture of the Miami skyline and links to pages on Trulia about Miami – Homes For Sale, Miami Stats and Trends, Miami Voices and Recently Sold Homes in Miami. This is great information that makes it easier for you to find exactly what you’re searching for!

You can see another example for the Trulia SearchMonkey enhancement by searching for “Trulia”.

The Trulia enhancement is another example of how we’re trying to improve the real estate search experience for our users and push the technology envelope through innovation. Even if you don’t use Yahoo! as your search engine, it’s definitely worth adding the Trulia SearchMonkey enhancement and giving it a spin. We’re anxious to hear your feedback!

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As you might already be aware, we are obsessed with real estate information at Trulia. And today we launched a new way for you to visualize real estate from your desktop.

Trulia Snapshot is therapy for home buyers, real estate enthusiasts, college-age dreamers, ready-to-upgrade home owners, your mom, my mom and everyone from the interested to real-estate-obsessed. It satisfies our universal need to gander real estate photos, prices and locations online.

Of course we are here to help you dream big, but whether it’s pure gawkery that you are after, or if you are longing for a new way to visualize what’s on the market in your area, Trulia Snapshot is here to fulfill your needs (well…at least these needs).

So how does it work?

It’s pretty simple: search for any city in the U.S., can click around the map, scroll the slider through the most expensive/least expensive homes in your neighborhood, or just hit the big play button on the left to sit back and let your dream home find you.

TruliaSnapshot Demo from Trulia.com on Vimeo.

This is one of many data visualizations that we’ve launched. For Trulia Snapshot we worked with the very cool Stamen Design, the same firm that helped us bring Trulia Hindsight and Trulia SearchPaths to life. And of course we recently launched the ability to walk the streets from your couch with our Google Street View integration!

So what are you waiting for? Start clicking to get started…

Chicago, IL; Austin, TX; Los Angeles, CA; and Miami, FL.

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We’ve been working on a new version of our Home Roll widget and I’m happy to announce that it’s now available for everyone to use! It’s a super-visual tool that gives your website users a snapshot of the latest homes for sale in a market.

Highlights of the new version include:

• Thumbnail images!
• Snapshot of the six “best matched” property results on Trulia
• Easily embeddable in any web page
• You choose the city and state, but can also specify a price range, number of beds/baths and square foot requirements for your search using simple choices from drop-down menus
• Like all of our widgets - it’s free!

Whether you’re a real estate professional, a blogger or a professional publisher, the Home Roll widget is a great way to add a snapshot of real estate search to your website. Check-out how Topix is using it in the Real Estate section of their website.

We’re super excited to add the new and improved Home Roll widget to the growing list of Trulia widgets and tools for your website. These tools are free, easily embeddable on any web page and add great real estate content for website owners. There are live examples of our TruliaMap and TruliaStats widgets in the side bar of our blog.

Stay tuned for more free and easy ways to bring the Trulia search experience to your site!

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It’s been an exciting day thus far at Trulia. Now that the new Google Street View integration is live, we’re getting some fantastic feedback.

Here are a few quotes:

Paul Glazowski from Mashable says, “In a partnership made official this week, Trulia users can not only parse address numbers and neighborhood data and the like, they can also take a little virtual stroll around the block thanks to those snazzy camera vans roaming around the nation and snapping pics at ground level.”

Nicole Nicolay from My Tech Opinion says, “For those agents specializing in relocation, this is obviously a powerful resource for learning about a new area.”

Greg Sterling from Search Engine Land says, “StreetView on Trulia can thus potentially save homebuyers time by providing more “context” to listings.”

Jay Thompson at Agent Genius says, “In true Trulia fashion, the Street View module is seamlessly integrated.”

Rich Jacobson from Active Rain points out, “Now your Buyers can see that HUGE water tank next door. Or maybe the description of a ‘filtered’ or ‘partial’ view by the Listing Agent gives new meaning to embellishment. And who knew that the Next-Door-Neighbor was a Used Car/Appliance collector? You can begin to see the value that this incorporated feature will offer.”

Mike Price of MLBroadcast guest blogged on Geek Estate Blog saying, “Things like the mashup of Street View and Trulia are the kind of milestones that deliver on Web 2.0.”

If you haven’t given our new feature a look see yet, just click on any listing within the 40 markets where Street View is currently available on Trulia to experience it yourself. Besides actually standing in front of the house itself, this is pretty much the next best thing to being there.

I was on Twitter after we launched Google street view and ran into Robert Scoble who liked how we implemented it. Cool!

Recent Trulia Street View Coverage:

Search Engine Land - Real Estate Search Engine Trulia Adds Google StreetView Imagery
Screenwerk - Trulia Integrates StreetView Images
Venture Beat - Trulia Booms Amid a Housing Bust Launches Google Street View Integration
Street Insider - Google and Trulia B-Roll Opportunity
4realz - Trulia Integrates Googles Street View Photos Into
Mediapost - Trulia Real Estate Site adds Google Street View
Earthtimes - Trulia Users Walk the Neighborhood with Google Street View
Active Rain - Trulia and Google give Street View Street Smarts
Agent Genius.com - Trulia Incorporates Google Street View
Beta Daily.com - Trulia gives street view to real estate search
My Tech Opinion - Trulia First to Go Google Street View
Maxsell Real Estate - Trulia Continues Innovation in Real Estate Search
Geek Estate Blog - Trulia & Google Take it to the Streets
Mashable - Trulia Adds Google StreetView to Home Listings
Seattle PI - Trulia Offers StreetView of Homes
The Daily Pundit - If All Goes According to Plan, You’ll Never Leave the House Again
Future of Real Estate Marketing - Trulia Shows Us the Streets
Digital Earth Blog - Trulia Integrates Google Maps StreetView
Google-Lat Long Blog - Navigating the Online Real Estate Search
c|net News.com - Real Estate Site Offers Google Street View
Web Pro News - Trulia Obtains a Street View
The Kelsey Group - Trulia Launches StreetView: The Street You Might Live On
Sellsius - Trulia Using Google Street View to Enhance Real Estate Search
Inman News - Trulia hits the streets with new imagery
Google Maps Mania - Google Street View Comes to Trulia
Road to Real Estate - Want to see what the neighbors house looks like?
E-Learning Service - House shopping with Google Street View
Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog - New Features at Trulia: One Major Blunder
WatBlog - Google Street Maps: A Boon Or A Curse?
MetroSpokane - MLS Deathmatch: Trulia Streetview Vs.Windermere Birdseye
Priority One News - Trulia gives us Google Streets!

View Larger Map
Lombard Street - Via Chad Huck

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Starting today our users can walk the neighborhoods…from the comfort of their very own couches.

We are excited to announce that we now have Google Maps Street View technology integrated on homes for sale, recently sold homes, and property records across the U.S. Now, house hunters can stand in front of a house, walk along the front of the property, stroll down the block, check out the neighbors and get the “true view” of a neighborhood, without ever getting in a car.

We’ve incorporated Street View onto Trulia in over 40 metropolitan areas in the U.S. where it’s available today, and we’ll roll it out on more of our 60+ million property pages as coverage expands.

So, let me take you on a faux Chicago house tour:

1. Start off your neighborhood tour at this Lakeview, Chicago property with the For Sale sign on the front yard. This 3br/2ba home has no yard or buffer space with the neighboring homes, but it has a unique architectural element with the one-sided clerestory window (I had to look it up too).
2. Hmmm…no garage or driveway, so we need to get more info about parking. Head North on Greenview. It’s a tree-lined, traffic-calmed street. Street parking doesn’t look too bad – plenty of spaces available.
3. Children Crossing sign at the end of the block – turns out that Blaine Elementary is only a few blocks away (East on Grace)…and their test scores are an 8 out of 10. Not too shabby.

Lots of great information to have on hand before planning an open house visit.

Searching on Trulia now gives you the “true view” of an area so you can discover surprises lurking around the corner and save your trips for those homes that truly meet your expectations:

• This $600K San Francisco condo looks pretty nice. Want to make sure there is a Laundromat nearby? Turn 180° and you’ll see one right across the street!
• This condo in Cleveland, OH has “sweeping views of the lake - the beach – the yacht club – as your front yard.” Rotate 180° and you’ll see those sweeping views are interrupted by railroad tracks directly across the street.
• This Chicago Single Family Home looks like a gem, as long as you don’t mind cozying up with your neighbors.

With this launch we add another level of efficiency and transparency for consumers across the country. We hope you enjoy it!

Official press release here.

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We’re very pleased with the interest from publishers and to hear that TPP is a good fit for all types and sizes of websites, including daily newspapers, weekly publications, real estate information sites and real estate agents.

Using TPP, our partners benefit from:

1) Enhanced branding – your unique branding and style are prominently shown at the top of every TPP page

2) It’s Free! – TPP is free, easy to set up and there aren’t any maintenance charges

3) More advertising revenue – you can display your own ads or personalized content on your TPP site and retain 100% of the revenue from that content

4) Great user experience – because TPP sites use the same technology as Trulia.com, they are automatically updated with the latest Trulia search technology and features

All types of websites can benefit from using the Trulia Publisher Platform. Whether you’re a large web publication or a small blog, you too can utilize Trulia’s functionality. With TPP, publishers have branded access to our national real estate search, school information, local price trends and other useful features, all for free!

Check-out some recently launched TPP partners:

St. Petersburg Times – a leading daily newspaper in St. Petersburg & Tampa, Florida who integrated a Trulia search box in their real estate section that launches their TPP (which is pictured in the image above).

Zilpy – a leader in online rental market information, who wins the prize for “Most Creative Integration” of their TPP (click on a neighborhood heat-map tile on a Zilpy results page and select “For Sale”)

The Goheens – Minnesota real estate professionals, who integrated their TPP from the “Search” tab of their website

We look forward to implementing TPP with more publishers of all shapes and sizes. If you’re interested in having Trulia power your online real estate search, please let us know.

Also, be sure to check-out our other great real estate tools for your website, available to everyone and free to use.

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This video.

Apparently, some rogue Trulians have a lot of time & Red Bull on their hands between the hours of 1:30 am - 5 am. Last week, we launched the ability to search open houses on Trulia…now it’s all searchable on the iPhone too! Check it out!

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