The number of homes for sale and subsequent residential conveyancing may be boosted by Google's latest addition to its internet map facility whereby house-hunters, or just the curious, can see where there are houses to buy and rent in any specific area of the UK.

The international search engine giant has linked with estate agents throughout the country to show where properties are available; including brief descriptions, asking price or rental fee and contact details for the agent.

Apart from geographic refinements by town, road or postcode, potential home-owners can specify requirements such as number of bedrooms and bathrooms as well as cost.

Districts of major cities, such as London and Brighton, can be focused on down to individual roads and in the countryside the maps can show the surrounding land as well as the property itself when combined with other elements of Google maps.

A number of the UK's largest estate agents, such as Countrywide and online specialist Zoopla, have signed up for Google to carry its information and more are expected to do so as the application becomes more widely-known.

Product manager at Google Andrew Foster said it was already known that many potential property buyers used the online maps to look at services and the appearance of areas where they wanted to live and adding listings of available homes would put everything in one place.

The service is free for estate agents and individuals to advertise their properties and available for anyone to view the homes for sale.