Archive for the ‘ Real Estate ’ Category

We just released a major overhaul to the Walk Score Amenity Map that includes:

• Handsome new user interface
• Lists and maps of amenities by category
• iPad/tablet friendly controls
• Small, med, large, and super-sizes
• Commute reports

Click an image below to try the live version!

The New Amenity Map

Commute Reports

The new commute reports show commute time and distance for driving, public transit, walking, and biking from a home or apartment listing to a work address.

Commute Report on the Amenity Map

Before and After

Here’s a screenshot of the old Amenity Map so you can compare old vs. new:

The Previous Amenity Map

Join over 6,000 sites that use the Walk Score Amenity Map today!

Walk Score has passed two major milestones: over 1 billion scores served and over 6,000 websites now use Walk Score Services.

What does this look like? Check out this real time map of where people are looking up scores:

Real Time Map of Scores Being Served

I’m lovin’ it! (Picturing a giant Walk Score logo followed by the words “Billions and billions served.”)

A few months ago we announced that we had passed 5,000 sites using the Walk Score Amenity Map and APIs and that number has now grown to over 6,000 including new comers ForRent.com, Bank of America, and AARP Travel Center Powered by Expedia.

Here’s why Brock MacLean, For Rent Media’s Senior Vice President of National Sales and Development, says they added Walk Score to their site: “With the addition of Walk Score, we are giving potential renters more valuable information about the properties they are viewing, letting them assess communities based on their lifestyle. This is one additional piece of information that will be helpful during the selection process and increase renter engagement on the site.”

Over the past few months we’ve also added a Mobile Amenity Map, walkability maps and neighborhood rankings for 2,500 U.S. cities, a preview our new “Street Smart” Walk Score, and a number of other new features. And, more’s coming including exciting design and feature enhancements to the Walk Score Professional Amenity Map.

Interested in joining our team? We’re hiring!

The Walk Score Amenity Map, which is used by over 5,000 real estate sites, is now available for integration into mobile websites, iPhone and Android apps. With almost no development effort, companies can add a map of nearby points of interest including restaurants, shopping and public transit to their mobile experiences.

Learn more about the new Walk Score Mobile Amenity Map and Walk Score Professional services.

Building on the success of the Walk Score API and Amenity Map currently used by over 4,000 websites, yesterday we also launched our Public Transit API which enables Web developers to easily add public transportation information to their websites.

With the Public Transit API, real estate and other website owners can show nearby public transit stops on a map, show a text description of nearby transit stops and routes, and show the Transit Score of a specific location.

And we’re excited that ZipRealty is the first brokerage firm to integrate Transit Score into their website.

“A growing number of home shoppers are seeking out homes that offer strong public transit options, high walkabilty scores and green features,” said ZipRealty’s Chief Home Hunter Leslie Tyler. “Showing Transit Score ratings for all home listings on our website gives our clients additional information about alternative transportation that they need before making an offer on a home.”

Read ZipRealty’s press release.

Almost a year ago we asked Is ZipRealty the Greenest Real Estate Site? What do you think?

When deciding where to live and work, not only do you want to know what amenities and services are nearby, you also want to understand your transportation options. How easily can you walk, bike or take the bus? How long will it take to get from point A to point B? And how much will it cost?

Last year, with the support of The Rockefeller Foundation, we set out to address these questions. And building on the initial integration of public transit information into Walk Score and the launch of City-Go-Round, today we are pleased to take another step forward in promoting transparency around transportation choices.

Our new Transit Score and custom Commute Reports empower anyone to quickly understand the proximity of public transportation and their commuting options.

Read the official press release.

What’s your Transit Score?

Transit Score of Boston

Similar to Walk Score, Transit Score provides a 0-100 rating indicating how well an address is served by public transportation. Ratings range from “Rider’s Paradises” that have world-class bus and rail service to areas with limited or no nearby public transportation. Transit Score is currently available in over 40 cities where public transit information is available. These cities include Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C.

What will your commute be like?

Commute Report in Seattle

After you’ve looked up an address on Walk Score, you can now get a summary of commuting options, including the time it would take to get to your work, school or other location by car, bike and foot and to see nearby public transit stops and routes. The customized commute report also includes a visual representation of the hills between your home and work to better understand how bikable or walkable the route may be.

Can you really afford this home?

Housing and Transportation Costs

For most families, transportation is the second largest household expense. Walk Score’s new home and transportation costs calculator makes it easier for people to understand the true costs of owning or renting in a particular location. Based on a few simple pieces of information, the calculator generates an estimated monthly amount that includes housing and transportation costs.

In particular, we’d like to thank Benjamin de la Pena, Associate Director at The Rockefeller Foundation, and the team at the Center for Neighborhood Technology who have been great partners on this initiative.

Real estate listings in Japan show the walking distance to the nearest subway station.

Below is a screenshot from the front page of Yahoo! Real Estate in Japan.  See the big picture of a train?

Picking the subway line or subway station near where you’d like to live is the primary way to search for a home or apartment on many Japanese real estate websites.  Picking the subway line comes before picking your price range, before picking the number of bedrooms, before picking a neighborhood, etc.  Exotic, isn’t it?!

Search by Subway Line - Front Page of Yahoo! Real Estate Japan

Here I’ve selected the Yamanote line to search for properties.  Real estate near the Yamanote line is desirable and expensive (more on why below).

Now I can select the subway stations on the Yamanote line where I’d like to search for real estate.

Search for Properties by Subway Station

Now I see the list of properties near the subway stations I’ve selected.

And drum roll please…  each property shows the walking distance to the nearest subway station!

In fact, my Japanese sources (pictured at the bottom of this post) tell me that the walking distance to the nearest subway station is the thing they look at first on a real estate listing.

Property Listings Show Walking Distance to Subway Stations

What is Transit-Oriented Development?

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is mixed-use residential and commercial development designed to maximize access to public transit.  TOD is a hot topic among urban planners right now—but Japan has been doing it for decades!

Why did Japanese real estate evolve this way? It turns out that Japanese rail companies built their subway lines on land they already owned—and these same companies developed the real estate around the subway lines. This ensured that there were enough people within walking distance of the subway.  In other words, the subway lines and real estate were developed together… which is exactly transit-oriented development!

An interesting side effect of this process is that the companies who built the subway lines tended to develop similar real estate along the entire line.  For example, a luxury company would develop high-end real estate along their subway line.  This is why real estate on the Yamanote line is considered desirable and is expensive—it was developed to be luxurious!  Imagine if people in the Bay Area said, “I’ve always wanted to live on the Pittsburgh / Bay Point line.  The real estate along that line is really choice.”

Public Transit on U.S. Real Estate Listings

As more cities in the U.S. benefit from transit-oriented development (like the Seattle light rail that is being extended as I type this) we expect to see more real estate listings showing nearby transit.

Walk Score has already helped hundreds of real estate sites show nearby public transit on their listings and we’re considering making our public transit data available via an API.  Contact us if you’re interested in showing public transit on your site.

Thanks to Takeshi and Yasuo from NHK TV in Japan who came to our offices to interview us about Walk Score—little did they know I was going to interview them about Japanese real estate!

I’m @mrlerner on Twitter.

Here’s a surprising fact about “green” buildings: transportation to a building accounts for twice as much energy as operating the building¹.

USA Today reports that only one of the six green-home award winners picked by the U.S. Green Building Council has a Walk Score higher than 50.

Can a home or office really be green if the only way to get there is by car?

Kudos to Kaid Benfield at NRDC for saying it best here:

One result is that the added environmental benefit of the residences’ laudable green features will be offset by the environmental damage caused by the sites’ automobile dependence, poor environment for walking, and relative distance from jobs, shops and services.  Another result is that the public, the building industry, and policy makers will continue to be misled about how best to achieve true environmental performance in our built environment.

MyNewPlace, the second most trafficked apartment and home rentals Web site in the U.S., now makes it easy to find the most walkable apartments for rent in your city.

And when you look up an address on the Walk Score site you now have 1-click access to see nearby apartments for rent on MyNewPlace, sorted by Walk Score!

“With the addition of search by Walk Score rating, MyNewPlace may be the ‘greenest’ apartment site on the Web, “said Mike Mathieu, founder of Front Seat, makers of Walk Score. “The easiest way to save money on transportation and lower your environmental impact is to move to a more walkable neighborhood and that is attractive to many renters.”

Sort by Walk Score on MyNewPlace:

Search results show their Walk Score in the summary:

Walk Score now links to nearby Walkable Rentals from MyNewPlace:

Widget!
We also built a widget with MyNewPlace that you can put on your own site to help your visitors find walkable apartments.

Get this widget for your site!

“A recent MyNewPlace survey indicated 79 percent of renters believe neighborhood information is an important factor when deciding on a particular apartment over another,” said Mark Moran, vice president of marketing for MyNewPlace. “Utilizing leading-edge walkability technology available from Walk Score allows us to provide prospects with an in-depth feel for a neighborhood thereby making them a more qualified lead for landlords.”

A big thanks to all the folks at MyNewPlace for all their great work on helping to promote walkable neighborhoods!

The Local Market Explorer plugin from Zillow is a simple way to add data from Walk Score, Education.com, and Zillow to your blog—and it just got better.

Zillow just released version 2 of the Local Market Explorer.  Improvements include support for neighborhoods and ZIPs, video embedding, and easier customization.

Download version 2 of the Local Market Explorer plugin here or read more on the Zillow blog.

Check out these sample pages on the Geek Estate Blog:

• Pearl District, Portland, OR
• Upper Eastside, New York, NY
• Los Angeles, CA

Enjoy!

We’re very excited to announce that Windermere Real Estate is now showing Walk Score on all their website listings.

Windermere is a great Seattle success story and is ranked as the largest independent real estate company in the West, with more than 300 offices and 8,000 associates serving communities in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Washington and British Columbia.  Windermere’s website attracts nearly 1 1/2 million visitors each month to view detailed home listings.  Windermere.com is displaying the Walk Score Tile on all listings, such as this beautiful Wallingford neighborhood home in Seattle.  Thanks to the online team at Windermere for their online leadership and use of Walk Score!