'Dude, where's my house?'

SAN FRANCISCO -- There are fewer excuses for getting lost these days, and more ways to locate your next home.

Real estate companies are increasingly integrating interactive online mapping technology into their products, and consumers and real estate agents are using these visual tools to quickly locate properties and gather detailed home and neighborhood information.

Some companies have moved well beyond simple property and street locator maps to provide rich, layered content such as parcel boundaries, school district boundaries, community demographic information and even neig  more...