Home : Blogs : Missy Caulk-Ann Arbor- Realtor(R)- Ann Arbor Real Estate : Ann Arbor and Saline Michigan Real Estate

A Great Way to Help your Buyers & Sellers

My web-master suggested a new site to me today so I wanted to share it with all my friends here. It is called Walk Score.

You can add any address where any of your listings are, or where your buyers are considering moving and it will give you the score for walking distance to groceries, drug stores, hardware stores, coffee shops, movies, schools, bars, parks, libraries and bookstores, including the distance to them.

In Ann Arbor, people love to be within walking distance to down-town and the University of Michigan. So those homes will typically sell for a higher price per square foot and sell the fastest.

So I went in to my Number1 Expert site, Missy Caulk.com and added this walk score link to all my listings.

Now when a buyer or seller sees the listing they can find out not only what businesses, parks or schools are in the area but the walking distance to them. Isn't this a great way to help your buyers and sellers?

You can also add a button to your listings so buyers and sellers can check their own walk score.

I can't put the results here because it is java script so just go try it out at Walk Score. You can see the widget on my side bar at Ann Arbor Real Estate Talk blog.

Thanks Stacey Pfeifer at Best Image Marketing.

Posted by Missy Caulk-Ann Arbor- Realtor(R)- Ann Arbor Real Estate on 03/07/2008 01:14 PM

Comments (70)

ann arbor, mi, 48103, walk score, technology

Originally posted at: Ann Arbor Undressed : A Great Way to Help your Buyers & Sellers

Post is included in group: WordPress Blog

70 Comments on A Great Way to Help your Buyers & Sellers

MAR

2008

Good advice, thanks!!

Hey, now that's a great tip. People are interested in walking more than ever. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the great info. People to walk places, it super to know how close things are.

That is just the coolest thing!! I love that it shows the places on a google map! I did my address and received a 57 - not bad. I do walk when I can.

Very Interesting. I work in traditionally more rural / open areas so I really don't see much of that. However, recently it seems like people are talking about walking distances from "here to there" in the smaller towns and communities. It's amazing how these trends seem to sweep across the country.

Great Link

What a wonderful idea. Going to check it out. Thanks.

What a great idea thanks for sharing

Awesome - tahtnks for sharing - I still need to figure out how to get it to my webpage though

Missy -- Thanks for this information. I don't see many walkers here in Oak Ridge, but I get listings in Knoxville also and this will definately be attached to those.

Have a Fabulous Real Estate Day!

Anona

That is a neat site. I think buyers would benefit greatly from this information. Thanks for sharing with all of us at AR.

That's a really neat site. Thanks I am going to use too.

Missy, Thanks for that link. I'm adding to my listings as well, but down here it appears that people drive everywhere. I don't know why they don't walk, but...

Missy, I am going to try it out now. Thanks for the tip. AJ

What a fantastic program! Last year I had a young lady who wanted to purchase within walking distance of downtown Mt. Clemens. She attended college in Chicago and fell in love with being able to walk everywhere and didn't want her lifestyle to change. I think it's becoming more and more important to people.

Now this is a site I know a lot of my buyers are going to like. Many walk and others love to bicycle. Of course, in New Hampshire, they may need to wait awhile until the snow melts. Right now the sidewalks are covered with 4-5 feet of snow!

What a cool tool Missy. I'm going to pass on to my contacts. Thanks!

Neat little tool, Missy. I just did my own home address and my walk score is 29. I guess that tells you that we are drivers and not walkers.

I see that Widggy is at work again!!!!

Thank you for the tool.

This is a great idea. Perfect for the PNW!

Hi Missy you are always on top of the cutting edge...nice post. I looked at it. Will have to go back and review with a bit more time.

This is wonderful Missy, in my area you really can't walk anywhere, but seems like a great site. I'm passing it on to my husband who is broker urban areas.

Missy thank you for sharing this great tool it will be a plus on websites and blogs everywhere.

Thanks for the info, that is definately something I have not heard of.

This is great! Thanks for being so generous!

That's cool! You always come up with the cool tech stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Missy, I checked out WalkScore several weeks ago and somewhat like Google satellite maps I found that it provided useful information but its database needs to be updated to be complete. It found niche grocery stores and missed the major ones. I think the idea is a good one though. Of course in many areas around where I live if you walk you will get run over by all the cars.

Gary, I like this one as I like where it can show the buyers how quick they can get to even if they drive. In Ann Arbor people like to walk in the summer. LOL

Missy - Very cool website, I love sites like this is great... Thank you for sharing this with us.

Good tip thanks we will look it over.

Missy- Great tips! Not many people walk around here, they do ride their horses, so maybe knowing how far things are on horse would work? :) I can walk to the stores, parks, schools from my house.

That was really cool. My home ranks 83 out of 100. One reason that we bought our home was to be able to walk to our destinations if we ever had to give up our cars in our senior years. My previous home is only a mile away, but it only ranks 23 out of 100.

MAR

2008

Thanks Missy for another great tip. I will have to add it to my listings. Hope life is treating you well.

Hi Missy I had seen this site back about six months ago. The problem with the site for me is that my area is very rural. Nobody would be walking to get to any of the places they mention. It is a great tool though for those who are in more of a city like setting.

Missy -very cool site and a great way to interact with the visitor to your site. The only drawback for now is that it doesn't have some important info, for example, in Princeton in the Schools category id doesn't have elementary schools, but has Arts Council. It gets it's data from Google, that's the reason. Thanks.

I've used this tool after it was recommended to me. It's awesome! Thanks for sharing it with everyone else.

Missy - Thanks for the tip. I had not heard of it, I need to go take a look at it.

Cool little widget Missy. I hope you are starting to thaw out up there... Keep up the great work!

Missy, This sounds like a neat tool. I couldn't use it here because we have to drive most places.

Missy- Thanks so much for sharing that great tool with everyone! I went to your website to see how you had added WalkScore. Your site is very user-friendly and client-centered. Good job!

Linda Schulte, Keller Williams North Atlanta

Missy, what a terrific tool! Parts of DC are turning into a really great walking town, so this is something I am going to try out!

Missy, thanks for the great tip. It does seem as though more people consider walking now if possible. You would think the gas prices were high or something.......LOL.

Missy--Thanks for sharing this...What a great site! How helpful!

Unfortunately I don't know if anything will rate well for walking around here. They weren't thinking about walking when they built our campus!!!

Missy...

Well that's really cool. I will definately share it in the future.

Oh. Before I forget...I am now using Firefox on AR. It seems to work much better. I am getting my cookies with the milk :)

TLW...ROAR!

Missy, I love it!! A2 is totally a walking town and rated one of the best. Very cool!! I will check this out.

Wow, this is very cool Missy. I really appreciate you sharing with us. Have a super Saturday!

Maria

Karen, yea you have to live here to "get it".

TLW, good I am using it too, for blogs and stuff, have to toggle back and forth to IE for zipforms, and MLX

Missy,

Thanks for sharing. It sounds like a great tool for areas that are highly populated.

I also love Walk Score! it is a great addition to print out for your property booklets for homes you have listed

Missy ... you are an amazing woman .... how DO you findall these things.

You're getting me hooked! I LOVE this stuff. I'm now a twitter.

Thanks again

gotta go to bed. Spring forward. Church early tomorrow.

MAR

2008

Looks interesting, I checked it out, but does google maps do this or not. What is the difference.?

Missy saw it on your website - cool tool thanks for sharing - soon we'll be calling you Tool Girl (along with Tool boy) :)

this sounds very cool.... I would be afraid to put it on my site - most of the stores are at least 6 miles from homes and bigger stores are 30 miles away - might scare a few people :o)

Hi Missy,i came over to tell you about finding out the teams "Why", and found this post, thanks. I e-mailed it to Stacey to add to my #1 Expert site too :). By the way, did you e-mail her about the new way they are putting our listing flyer's on?

I don't want to take up too much space, but the thing to remember with the team, is they are not, and never will be YOU! I have a hard time with that too...but you are the "Rainmaker". My coach had me do a exercise with my buyers agents on how much money they absolutely needed to live each year, and guess what, it was almost exactly what they made each year! That was the extent of their goals, and never got them above that mark. Please let me know if you do? Would love to hear the outcome, Liz

Thesa, it might not work in rural areas, but city folks who want to walk, like in Ann Arbor will love it.

Thanks Missy..... Great tip ! I will look into adding to my site as well.

Missy - Simply wonderful Thanks for sharing this great link with us.

MAR

2008

Cool Web Site!! Thanks!

Missy thank you so much for sharing this tool. This is something buyers are usually interested in and a great addition to a listing.

MAR

2008

Thanks for sharing this. I'm sure some downtown folks here in North Texas would appreciate this information. But most of here us are plain lazy. We would wait 5 minutes for the guy to pull out of his parking lot, instead of driving a little further and could park right away. We also drive to our neighbors' too (instead of walking!)

Missy...I read your post a couple of hours ago and signed up right away. I received one message saying I would receive another which hasn't happened as yet. I was going to do a search for Missy Caulk. That was going to be my very first.

We can only walk out here for the sake of walking. You're really not going to get anywhere unless you walk about 25 miles or more. I know there is a school a little closer than that but than I'm no longer school age.

Cheers,

Kathleen

Another awesome site! You are a great resource ... thank you for sharing with us

MAR

2008

this one is cool!

Missy - what a cool tool! We were just talking today about people wanting to know how far to the nearest Starbucks ... grocery store ... dry cleaners

MAR

2008

Missy... this is very cool.... and I see that you have written 4 or 5 other blogs since the 11th... someone has been a busy beaver.... I am just now getting to them. But again... this is cool.

How many times is the word cool used in the preceeding 65 comments?!!! But what can I say but....COOL!

MAR

2008

Thanks for the info. I'll certainly look into it.

Hi Missy. Thanks for sharing the great tip about this valuable tool! Keep them coming. Best of luck.

MAR

2008

Anything to have an edge. What a useful tool. Thanks a bunch!

JUL

2008

My walk score is 45... I was rather upset with it. And I was surprised to know that there is another score called drive score to evaluate my house. I found the way to calculate it online at Fizber site http://drivescore.fizber.com/ . I've got much better results - 51.

Leave a response…

Name:

Email:
(optional)

Comment:

What does the graphic say?