DEC 03

Holy crap if this isn't amazing! I just discovered a website that knows exactly where you should live.

Simply stick in the addresses of all of the places that you and members of your family regularly go (grocery stores, work place, daycare, dog walking, strip club, whatever) and this awesome little machine will weight them appropriately and then tell you where exactly, within your town, you can live using the least amount of gas.

Now, it might not find you a place in the nicest neighborhood, or with the most appropriate median home values, but it will decrease your commute time. And, frankly, driving can be the worst part of many people's lives. I know, because I once had a gigantically evil commute, and was a worse person because of it.

This, combined with my favorite home-locating site, Walkscore, could definitely provide home-buyers with some much needed tools to determine whether that cheap 4-bedroom in the new suburb is really a better deal than the pricier 3-bedroom in town.

The application calculated that I should live on the railroad in the middle of an abandoned lumber mill. Which, actually, is surprisingly apt. The abandoned lumber mill is one of the most central locations in town, and developers are currently working to convert it into a densely built, green community.

Well done computer! I think I may move there...once there are houses.

Comments (8)

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Hmm
written by Damien Guard, December 03, 2008

I saw a demo of something similar over 10 years ago on a desktop app where you picked the areas important to you - work, shopping, family, etc. and then you could drag the radius out from each point and it would draw houses available for sale where they intersected...

[)amien

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hooray!
written by Laura, December 03, 2008

This is fun! And, turns out I only live about a block south of where I "should" live. Woo hoo!

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written by Moshe, December 04, 2008

this is a fabulous tool. finally something clever, rich with important information, simple to use, useful and environmentally friendly. i wonder how many people that look for new homes realize that they can benefit from the access that this tool affords.

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It should take into account frequency of
written by commonjoe, December 04, 2008

The only issue is that it doesn't give the option of estimating how often a week/month you visit these locations.
Sure I visit my family 1 time a week, but work is attended 5 times and church 3 times.

It's neat, but adding a visits per week option would mean a lot more efficent planning. The math isn't too hard.

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Dodgeball
written by Peaboy, December 04, 2008

You should be able to import your Dodgeball RSS Feed.

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written by Maria, December 11, 2008

Dear commonjoe,

Your suggestion is excellent and we (at www.OptimalHomeLocation.com) are planning on adding weekly route frequency entry as soon as we will figure out how to do it in an intuitive and simple way. For a family of 3-4 people with 10 or more different routes it may get very cumbersome.

We are also working on adding neighborhood crime data.

On a positive side, recent scientific research demonstrated that commute length directly affects our happiness. One of the studies showed that if your trip is an hour each way, you'd have to make forty per cent more in salary to be as 'satisfied' with life as a non-commuter is...
There are many more details on how commute is connected with happiness accessible via red link that we just added to our website.
www.OptimalHomeLocation.com

Best and thanks for the feedback.
Maria

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written by Fred, June 26, 2009

this sounds cool im going to try it out

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dunk sb shoes
written by dunk sb shoes, August 31, 2009

How soon will you update your blog? I’m interested in reading some more information on this issue.

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