The economy, health and the environment are top of most people’s list of concerns, and what better way to save money while improving your health and the environment than by walking?
Last week at Inman Real Estate Connect in New York it was revealed that a Walk Score rating system was being added to over 85 million property listings, across several portals and real estate search engines in the US.
Walk Score is a project by Front Seat who describe themselves as “a civic software company and incubator”. They specialise in software that connects people to the places we live, the resources we consume, and our communities.
Walk Score promotes the car free lifestyle by providing a personalised walkability rating for any address. Within one month of the programme’s July 2007 launch, over 1 million addresses were scored.
It works by calculating the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. This produces a ranking out of 100, ranging from 0-24 which is a rather dire ‘car dependent’ location to a magnificent 90-100, which is classed as a ‘Walkers’ Paradise’.
The announcement revealed some new big name partnerships for Walk Score with Zillow.com, ZipRealty.com, Postlets.com, REcolorado.com, ColoProperty.com, and others, who will now show Walk Score on all their listings using Walk Score Real Estate Services.
The company says: “Homebuyers rank proximity to daily conveniences as one of the two most important factors in choosing a neighborhood—more important than schools and property taxes”.
It’s certainly one of the coolest in a long list of neighbourhood applications that are now available.
Advertising Partner
-->
{ 4 trackbacks }