When people are looking for a new place to live, they usually want to know some key facts beyond cost and number of rooms: Most notably, they are curious about what is in the neighborhood and what their commute would be like. In fact, over three quarters of home shoppers rate being within a 30-minute commute to work as important, and two thirds of home shoppers rate being within an easy walk to grocery stores and restaurants as a key factor in deciding where to live.
Additionally, two thirds of Millennials say that living in a walkable community is important and one third will pay more for the ability to easily walk to shops, work and entertainment. That is partly due to rising gas prices but also the quality of life benefits associated with walkable neighborhoods. Data suggest that residents of walkable neighborhoods are happier, healthier and more likely to volunteer in their communities and entertain friends at home.
You can see the demand for neighborhood information grow as more and more real estate web sites are populating their listings with neighborhood data. Walk Score delivers four million scores per day across our network of partner sites, which means a lot of people are hungry for neighborhood information.
As people continue to shop for homes, they expect to see local information along with listings. If you aren’t providing that information, they are going someplace else: either a different web site or through tools like Google and Bing Maps.
For more information, visit www.walkscore.com.
