If you haven't had a chance to check out Google's brand new Street View option of Google Maps... you need to check it out, it is amazing.

With Google Maps Street View, you have the ability to 'fly' an orange avatar around the Mapscape and drop it on any street or location that is highlighted with blue. Once you've selected an area, you get to view an actual photograph taken at that location -- with the ability to move the camera a full 360 degrees! In addition, you virtually move up and down the streets using helpful on-screen arrows and street names (overlapped on the image by Google Maps).

Luckily for those of us living in the San Francisco Bay Area, many areas are already photographed and available to view. What this technology will eventually provide for Real Estate is incredible ... the ability to view a home's neighborhood online, basically "driving" up and down the streets nearby your home of interest.

Click on the Google icon to the right of this post and then use Street View to check out a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge I saw while I was on Marine Drive.

Rich Barton, Chairman & CEO over at Zillow.com, has had his own home for sale using the Zillow platform for around four months now and it has finally gone into "Pending" status (soon to be sold, escrow almost closed).

As of this post, the home as received over 5,085 pageviews! An amazing accomplishment. Rich and his Realtor, Gordon, really used every feature of the site to increase interest and the number of pageviews (including placing a link to the home's Zillow page at the end of every e-mail Rob has sent out, very smart tactic).

Hopefully they will be able to change the status to SOLD very soon! Congrats.