What a coincidence, the same week as a debate started on the blog Future of Real Estate Marketing (an Inman company) why (or if) 'the map based search was dead' an absolute stunning new search tool was launched on the Swedish market called BostadsPivot ('RealEstatePivot').

The service

A software developer named Magnus Ohlsson has used the Silverlight control PivotViewer combined with listings data from the Booli API (a Swedish residential listing service) to create this tool.

Hard to explain the tool in one picture but each photo represents one listing the different columns are in this case the representing different price intervals.

Try it

It's for sure worth trying. And for all non Swedish speaking here is the short manual.

In the panel to the left one decides how to limit the search. In the drop down menu in the upper right corner one choose how to 'group' the listings. And finally there are two icons (upper right corner) for how to view the result.

Read more about the tool at the developers blog (in English). Where you also find more information about the PivotViewer, including a great TED presentation on the topic.

My thoughts

First of all, the PivotViewer technology is impressive and this example for sure takes advantage of it. It gives a new way to browse the listings. The downside is to make it as user friendly as needed for the average user. Furthermore, the integration of a map could be better. However, the use of technology is brilliant. Other listing services will hopefully be inspired by this.