Online Real Estate Technology

We’ve had Walkscore.com and I’ve talked about the fantastic amount of information you can get from this great site,well now, and it had to happen, we have Drive Score.

I checked the site out earlier and got a screen grab for you which is displayed below. I then went and checked the site again and got a message saying that Google were blocking traffic because of the high traffic volumes searching the site, just goes to show the popularity of this type of information.

With all the emphasis now being placed on local search and local suburbs and neighborhoods, it is no wonder the site is very popular. Walkscore gives you the environmentally friendly version,but if you want to live out in the country areas or some of the outer suburbs you need to know where the local utilities are and how far away from your property they are. So this web site is just the score, pardon the pun!!

When you type in the address of the property, you’ll get a Google map displaying the house and the properties drive score out of 100. The greater the number of businesses and amenities nearby, the higher the Drive Score. You’ll also find on the map the locations of parks,restaurants,hospitals,libraries & other amenities. If you click on the icons on the map, you’ll then get directions to the location based on it’s driving distance from the house. It shows the distance in miles, but remember this is meant for the US market, to me though, that’s only a minor issue, given the great information the site gives you.

Users can also turn off some of the search results, so you can fine tune it to your requirements.

 The site is attached to US For Sale by Owner site Fizber.com and you can click on the link here if you’d like to check it out: http://drivescore.fizber.com/

Drive Score Screen Shot

Ever wondered when visiting a new city how safe you were, or when you’re looking for your dream home and find one in what looks like a great suburb, but you don’t know how safe that suburb really is? If this is you, then here’s an Iphone application that is just made for you.

Lethal is a new Iphone & Ipod touch application available through Itunes. The application draws on information in various data bases which has been compiled from government and academic sources. The app uses a lethal index system which tells the user how dangerous that area is. There’s a “Wildlife” index, a “Crime” index as well as “Disease” and “Disaster” indexs.

This application is ideal if you want to know what strange animals, or “beasties” might be lurking near you when you go out walking or if you want to check out how safe you are in your current suburb, this little beauty will give you the score. If you are travelling or sightseeing and start wondering how safe you are, this unit uses GPS to find you and then let you know how safe you are in your current location.

Unfortunately, this application will only work in the US at the moment, but if you are planning a trip to the states, this would be an absolute must have before you leave.

Just imagine the impact this would have if launched in Australia on property searches or suburb choice.

The application is available at a small cost from Itunes and I’ve included a screen shot for you below:

New Iphone & Ipod Touch Application

I first wrote about walkscore.com back in September, How Walkable is Your Home or Suburb? – Like to Find Out? and I’ve been an advocate of it’s use by real estate agents in Australia. One of the real estate sites has even done some research on it’s impact on a property listing, when used as one of the images and surprise surprise, it’s the most clicked on image on the listing, so it comes as no surprise to me that the site has continued to grow in popularity.

Last week, at the Inman Technology conference in new York, it was reported that the Walk Score rating system was being added to over 85 million property listings in the US. You’ll soon see the rating system on the major real estate portals such as Zillow.com.

Walk Score promotes the car free lifestyle by providing a personalised walk-ability rating for any address. 

The company says: “Homebuyers rank proximity to daily conveniences as one of the two most important factors in choosing a neighborhood.

Check out the web site on www.walkscore.com.

Interesting the little gems that you find in doing research on the web, particularly the way the web is able to provide information to consumers searching on line for real estate, surburb or lifestyle impact of the home they are researching to purchase. This web site has been around for awhile now and I originally did not write a blog piece on it as it contained US information only, but just recently, thanks to Google base, it now contains information on the walkability of Australian suburbs. What do I mean by this?, essentially if you as a real estate agent quote in your listings that the beach is a 5 minute walk, or that the local shopping centre or public transport is just around the corner, this web site will allow on line real estate searchers to actually check your estimates. The site is called walkscore.com and when you load the site, you can input the street address of the property or suburb and the site will give you a walkability score. I checked my own house and suburb on this site and it gave me a very low score, meaning that I need to use my car to get to any of the conveniences, shopping centres or restaurants etc in the suburb. Whilst the web site still quotes US suburbs on it’s front page, it will give you Australian suburbs via Google maps, now wouldn’t that be a great tool to add to your property or suburb information. Provding this type of information to buyers will really brand you as the local expert, give it a try, I’ve included the link below for you to try it out.   There’s a screen grab of an address and suburb I’ve used as an example,for you to see how the site provides this information.

On the left of the screen is the information regarding distances to shopping centres and other amenities, measured from the address of the property, the centre map shows the location of these. You can then click on the street level view to see the street and property.

How Walkable is Your Suburb or House?

And here’s the link for you to try this out for yourself:

http://www.walkscore.com/

Just received this from the Domain.com.au team,

We’re really excited to announce the arrival of Street View on Domain.com.au.

Taking your property search experience to a whole new level, you can now check out a street level view of properties in selected cities and then, walk down the actual street by panning, rotating and zooming using Street View maps.

See what the neighbours place looks like, explore the whole neighbourhood and even see how close a property you’re interested in is to shops, school, parks and more.

To find out more on how to use Street View on Domain.com.au

Given the success of this on real estate sites in the US, this will start to open up a new experience for Australian on line searchers.  Check it out on domain.com.au