Commuter Compass Launch
October 30, 2010 Leave a Comment
I’m pretty excited about the launch of our new search product Commuter Compass. The idea came from some of my own real estate buying experiences. Starting with a price range in mind, where to buy was basically a tradeoff between how much space I wanted and how far I was willing to commute. At the beginning of the process, had to do a lot of looking in a lot of different towns to get an idea of the possibilities.
Commuter Compass brings together market information on all the towns that might work for you in one place at one time. Much simpler than doing searches on 5 or 10 or 20 different towns and putting it together yourself. It helps you to narrow down the possibilities and home in on towns that are most likely to have the best choices.
When I had the first prototype working, I thought back to the first house I bought. At the time, I was working in Stamford, CT. The place I actually bought was in Trumbull, about 25 miles from work (45 minute drive). I input Stamford and a maximum commute of 25 miles and ran it.
Looking at the results was striking. I discovered another town, Ridgefield, further to the north, but 6 miles closer to Stamford. Ridgefield is a little more expensive than Trumbull and for the same price, I would have gotten a slightly smaller house. But that was a tradeoff I would have made … if I had known about it. At the time, I had the impression that Ridgefield was too expensive and never bothered to look there.
I think a lot of people might find themselves in a similar situation at some point. So I hope Commuter Compass can help them make better decisions. It would have helped me.
