Google Map Foreclosure Tricks

Prepare yourself to be floored:

Google Maps keeps evolving, expanding the ability to drill down into granular detail. The latest updated trick? Mapping foreclosures for sale.

This great and terrible Google trick has been around at least since 2008 — but it seems to have become much more robust earlier this year (See Dregs of the Future‘s post in January 2010).

Our friends at Chart Porn — a blog that got its name from one of our posts (honest!) — remind us of this, with a step-by-step lesson of how to use Google maps:

Google Maps Foreclosure Listings

1. Punch in any US address into Google Maps.

2. Your options are Earth, Satellite, Map, Traffic and . . . More. (Select “More”)

3. The drop down menu gives you a check box option for “Real Estate.”

4. The left column will give you several options (You may have to select “Show Options”)

5. Check the box marked “Foreclosure.”

I wanted to demonstrate the full extent of Foreclosures in the US, so after setting GMaps on foreclosure listings, I slowly zoomed out of the map. Voila! Most foreclosures that are for sale in the USA are now showing on your screen.

Note: This map does not reveal any of the millions of REOs that have already been sold by the banks that hold them.

But the maps do reveal an entire nation littered with foreclosure sales. It is an ugly and graphic depiction of how much inventory is out there, and why housing is stillmany years away from being healthy.

Let’s try to zoom in and see exactly the extent of foreclosures in Florida, one of the biggest boom & bust regions.

(Click the image to enlarge . . . The link for each Google Map is below each screenshot)

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Welcome to Foreclosureland:

(America seems to have caught the Measles; Bad real estate deals are apparently contagious)

Click for Google Map

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Lets zoom the map on to the state of Florida

(A state that knows a thing or two about bad real estate)

Click for Google Map

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Then we can zoom closer — to South Florida

(Thank goodness the Everglades stemmed the tide of foreclosures!)

Click for Google Map

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Zoom a bit more . . . Welcome to Miami!

(Playground to wealthy South Americans, Europeans, and other defaulters)

Click for Google Map

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Let’s Go Shopping . . . On Miami Beach!

(I’m sure easy financing is still available)

Click for Google Map

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The repercussions of the Housing boom & bust are likely to continue for years to come.

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UPDATE: December 9th, 2010 10:15am

Jonathan Miller notes his wife’s family comes from Detroit, where the map is nearly solid RED :

Click for larger updated Detroit map