Bing Maps: A New Tool for Buying Real Estate

Investing in real estate is more than just buying property.  Whether you are looking to buy a home or expand your business, you are investing in your future.  For this reason, more people are using Bing Maps, a new geospatial mapping tool by Microsoft, to look for real estate.  This resource lets the buyer view more than just satellite images of a property – it also shows it at multiple angles, gives a virtual tour, and analyzes local traffic congestion.  Other features like its street, aerial, and bird’s eye views give buyers much more information about potential real estate investments than Yahoo Maps, Google Maps, or Google Earth.

Bing Maps has revolutionized the way that real estate is researched.  It offers the luxury of scouting properties from home and eliminating those that do not meet the desired requirements. Use sites like We Buy Houses to locate properties that are near schools, hospitals, parks, and other areas that many people consider important when buying a home.  If you are interested in purchasing a business space, Bing Maps can help by showing potential customers and competitors in the area, allowing you to pick the most profitable location for your business.

Bing Maps has three different view settings for its users.  Starting at its most basic level, Bing Maps’ street view allows users to target specific areas without the distraction of a satellite image.  The street map is an invaluable preliminary scouting tool because it clearly shows residential and shopping areas, as well as subway transit stops, parks, and buildings of interest that can help buyers narrow their desired search area.

From this preliminary stage, Bing Maps’ aerial view will give users a more detailed representation of the area.  It contains all of the information of the street map, but also includes detailed satellite images of the surrounding area.  This is useful for buyers as it gives them a visual representation of a property’s lot size, spaces of greenery, and the density of homes and businesses in the area.  By combining these two features, potential buyers can get a more detailed picture of the property than they could otherwise.

Birds Eye View In Bing Maps
The bird’s eye view option is the jewel of Bing Maps.  This high resolution aerial map is able to show properties with unparalleled detail and texture.  The images are shot at a forty-five degree angle and can be zoomed in to create clearer images than other mapping programs on the Internet.  This real estate friendly view can also be rotated to show the different sides and entrances of a building.  The bird’s eye view provided by Bing Maps can help buyers save time by previewing properties before visiting them in person.

In addition to the view settings provided by Bing Maps, this platform also includes additional features that are particularly useful for people interested in buying real estate.  Its traffic flow option analyzes real time traffic congestion for most major roads and highways.  It predicts traffic flow by anticipating factors such as the time of day, sporting events, and current weather conditions for a particular area.  This can be an especially handy tool for buyers because it can project typical commuting times to and from a newly purchased home or business.

3d Plug-In For Virtual Tours
By installing the 3D plug-in for Bing Maps, users are able to take “virtual tours” of the property that they are interested in buying.  By clicking and dragging the mouse, the angle at which a property is viewed can be rotated and tilted to fit the need of the user.  Though every town cannot be viewed in 3D, most large cities within North America do offer this feature.

In Conclusion
Bing Maps is an essential resource for people interested in buying real estate.  Its high resolution images are far superior to Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and Google Earth.  Its bird’s eye view setting is an invaluable tool that allows buyers to look at a property from four different directions.  Additional components, like its 3D plug-in and traffic flow analysis allows buyers to narrow down the potential properties, significantly cutting down the amount of time it takes to find desirable real estate.  Bing Maps is an invaluable tool that will take the hassle out of searching for that perfect property.

This article was originally published by AgentDrive.com