Claudia over at Agent CEO points out a CBS Marketwatch article  telling consumers how to pick out a real estate agent.  She also points out how agents can use the same information to separate themselves fro, the crowd.

Okay, I'm sure you're saying, What's Google Base and what does it have to do with real estate?  Well, let me fill you in.

I'll let Google explain what it is:

Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content, which we'll make searchable on Google (if your content isn't online yet, we'll put it there). You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they do related searches. In fact, based on your items' relevance, users may find them in their results for searches on Froogle, Google Maps and even our main Google web search.

Clear as mud?  Well don't worry.  At this point you don't have to fully understand.  But, here's what it has to do with real estate:  This is the results page for doing a GoogleBase search on the phrase "Home for sale in Cadillac." (Opens in a new window).  You'll find 87 entries. 28 of the first 30 are from ERA.  That's because ERA Real Estate has begun providing all of its residential property listings nationwide to Google Base.

ERA isn't the only company providing listings to GoogleBase.  Point2, a real estate template website provider is doing the same thing, as is Homes and Land, and several FSBO websites.  In fact, using the search of "home for sale in Michigan" you'll come up with almost 4,400 homes. There are over a million properties listed in the housing category.

Is this something you should be looking into?  I think so.