Google launched an extensive marketing campaign in Australia this week highlighting the integration of real estate listings and Google Maps.

The star of the new campaign is a character named “Peg Man,” who is seen in videos searching Sydney for a home. (Example below). The search giant is also teaming with of Sydney’s largest agents, LJ Hooker, to dot the city with life-size versions of the pins found marking locations on Google Maps.

On the cool scale, Microsoft’s new mapping technology gets an 11.

Microsoft “architect” Blaise Aguera y Arcas showed off “augmented reality” mapping at the Ted conference, drawing gasps from an audience of experienced entrepreneurs and techies.

Shares of U.K. property portal Rightmove leapt this week on news that the company had successfully increased the fees it charges estate agents.

Rightmove announced that it expects 2010 earning to beat forecasts, in large part due to a boost in advertising revenue from agents. Some agencies are paying as much as 20 percent more in exchange for new services, the company reports.

Agencies were offered a choice of rate increases or the chance to stay at last year’s rates if they agreed to buy at least £200 (about $314) worth of extra products per month, Estate Agent Today reports.

Real estate marketing strategies in the U.S. represent a “major disconnect” with the industry’s own consumer research, according to a new survey of property firms.

A mountain of data tells real estate executives that consumers use the Web for their property research. For example, a recent report by the National Association of Realtors found 90 percent of consumers start their real estate search online.

Yet, 76 percents of firms spend less than 30 percent of their marketing budgets on digital marketing, according to a survey of “hundreds of real estate firms” by the Brandeis University International Business School, sponsored by inSegment, a digital marketing company.

By some accounts, Google’s move into U.K. real estate was a death knell for Rightmove, the dominant U.K. property portal. Rightmove’s stock initially plummeted in the wake of the announcement, with analysts lining up to explain how brokers will welcome Google’s free service over Rightmove’s annoying pay-per-play model.

"It will certainly blow Rightmove out of the water,” Sarah Beeny, host of Channel 4’s Property Ladder and a site owner told a reporter after Google went public with its plans. “You can only get your property listed on that site if you are an estate agent--what Google will do is level the playing field and they are doing it for free.”

That’s why Friday’s announcement that Rightmove is linking with Google Maps raised more than few eyebrows. The mega-portal will use Google Maps for all its property listings, while additional uses for Google Maps are "now in development."

Brazilian property portal Brazilian Homes last week joined U.S. giant Zillow in introducing rentals to its site.

“As a result of the growing Brazilian tourism market, we decided to start offering rental properties as part of our Brazilian property portfolio,” senior partner Alexander Wasastjerna said in a press release. “We have many clients who have purchased properties in Brazilian hotspots through our company, and we want to help our clients generate healthy rental returns for their property investment in Brazil.”

Brazilian Homes says the rentals are fully booked through March. “Over 90 percent of our bookings are coming from Brazilian tourists from the bigger cities further south in Brazil, and the rest is from foreign tourists who prefer to rent an apartment rather than booking into a hotel,” Wasastjerna said.

Shares in property portal Rightmove dropped 10 percent  in the wake of news that Google was extending its property offerings in the U.K.

"It will certainly blow Rightmove out of the water,” Sarah Beeny, host of Channel 4’s Property Ladder and a site owner, told the BBC. “You can only get your property listed on that site if you are an estate agent--what Google will do is level the playing field and they are doing it for free.”

Google has announced similar services in the United States and Australia, part of what many analysts see as a concerted move to become a first-stop for consumer property searches. Google allows free listings, integrated with Google maps and others services.

On the show floor

Quick takes from the first day of the 2009 National Association of Realtors Conference and Expo in San Diego:

-The U.S. market will see a 13.6 percent increase in existing home sales in 2010, with inventories dropping to a six- or seven-month supply, close to historic levels, NAR chief economist Dr. Lawrence Yun predicts. Prices should appreciate by 3 to 5 percent in the next year, according to the the group's latest forecast. “I am confident we will have price stabilization,” he said. “I am confident the fear factor will no longer be in play in 2010.”

However, foreclosures are "not out of the woods yet,” he said. “It will turn worse before it turns better.” It could be the 2^nd quarter of 2010 before foreclosures begin to bottom out, although he doesn’t think the continued high foreclosure numbers will impact the market as negatively as recent months. “There is demand to absorb the inventory quickly,” he said.

Although NAR officials downplayed the implications, the association’s moves this week to create a nationwide property database and a new consumer site are almost certainly the first steps in a plan to dominate the on-line real estate business.

While nothing is official, NAR seems likely to jettison its relationship with Move.com, taking control of its own destiny. The association has also moved to make international business a top priority (see “NAR Reworks Approach to Global Business”), a new proactive tactic which could help position the group in a competition with the likes of Trulia and Zillow.

While commercial markets around the world show signs of stabilizing, evidence is mounting that the worst is still ahead for the United States.

Commercial property values in the U.S. are already down more than 40 percent since 2009, according to Moody’s Investor Services. And Goldman Sachs predicts commercial prices could fall another 17 percent through the fourth quarter of next year.