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I work in online real estate, and this is exactly the kind of thing we love to do when it comes to utilizing data. How can we take X, Y and Z data points and ge

I work in online real estate, and this is exactly the kind of thing we love to do when it comes to utilizing data. How can we take X, Y and Z data points and generate something useful? Taking into account crime reports, graffiti reports, available parking spaces, etc, can all help you decide whether this place is good or not. The requirements here are kinda strange (proximity to a grocery store? not crime rates or anything like that?), but to each his own, I suppose. I'm really impressed with the resourcefulness of the author, though. I think I would probably just go to Zillow or Trulia and see what they say...

pdx 12y ago
> (proximity to a grocery store? not crime rates or anything > like that?), but to each his own, Some people are not able to, or do not wish to drive every time they want something to eat. Proximity to a grocery store sounds like a good metric. It's the european model of shopping every day for that days meal, vs the U.S. model of stocking up at Costco.
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  True. I was more remarking on the fact that the grocery store metric seemed to be the primary one, as opposed to just one of a great many. It's definitely the kind of thing I would consider, but I'd also consider more things like price per square foot, number of bedrooms, neighborhood quality, distance to schools, etc. That's why I said "kinda strange" and not something harsher.
Caged 12y ago
> The requirements here are kinda strange (proximity to a grocery store? not crime rates or anything like that?), but to each his own, I suppose. You're right. I've been working with open data in the Portland area for years now [1][2][3][4] and have a lot of built up internal knowledge of the neighborhoods and locations so I chose not to muddy the map with those things. 1: https://github.com/Caged/portlandcrime https://github.com/Caged/portlandcrime 2: https://github.com/caged/portland-atlas#examples https://github.com/caged/portland-atlas#examples 3: https://github.com/Caged/portland-census https://github.com/Caged/portland-census 4: http://labratrevenge.com/pdx http://labratrevenge.com/pdx
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Cool. I kinda figured that was the case. :)
enjo 12y ago
I'm in the midst of a pretty similar house-hunt to this guy here in Denver. I currently live Downtown and love it. I'm not willing to move outside of the city, so we're focusing on a proper house in one of the city-center neighborhoods. Proximity to a grocery store is absolutely at the top of my list. I like to buy my food as fresh as possible and generally only buy for the meal I'm cooking that night. So having not only a grocery store, but a high-quality one, near me is incredibly important. The difference of even a block or two is huge when it comes to something you want to walk to on a very regular basis. Sure I pay attention to things like the crime rate, but in most cities it's a nearly meaningless stat. The actual chances of being involved in a crime are very low in any neighborhood in my city (and this is true of almost every city in the U.S.). I think this is true of people predisposed to urban living. We're simply willing to tolerate a bit of crime risk in exchange for everything else that goes along with it. From a technology point of view, I imagine it makes online real-estate very difficult to optimize for. There are so many different priorities that people have that you have to find ways to build general data-mining tools that are still actually usable by most folks. That's a tough challenge, one I don't think anyone has come close to cracking. For instance walk scores seem to be the closest to what I want and they tell you virtually nothing. Don't get me started on how we "rank" schools too:)
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I bet walkable fresh correlates pretty well with lower crime (especially within an urban context, but I would expect it to work even when you ignore development patterns/density).

pdx 12y ago

> (proximity to a grocery store? not crime rates or anything > like that?), but to each his own, Some people are not able to, or do not wish to drive every time they want something to eat. Proximity to a grocery store sounds like a good metric. It's the european model of shopping every day for that days meal, vs the U.S. model of stocking up at Costco.

Jemaclus 12y ago
True. I was more remarking on the fact that the grocery store metric seemed to be the primary one, as opposed to just one of a great many. It's definitely the kind of thing I would consider, but I'd also consider more things like price per square foot, number of bedrooms, neighborhood quality, distance to schools, etc. That's why I said "kinda strange" and not something harsher.

Caged 12y ago

> The requirements here are kinda strange (proximity to a grocery store? not crime rates or anything like that?), but to each his own, I suppose. You're right. I've been working with open data in the Portland area for years now [1][2][3][4] and have a lot of built up internal knowledge of the neighborhoods and locations so I chose not to muddy the map with those things. 1: https://github.com/Caged/portlandcrime https://github.com/Caged/portlandcrime 2: https://github.com/caged/portland-atlas#examples https://github.com/caged/portland-atlas#examples 3: https://github.com/Caged/portland-census https://github.com/Caged/portland-census 4: http://labratrevenge.com/pdx http://labratrevenge.com/pdx

Jemaclus 12y ago
Cool. I kinda figured that was the case. :)

enjo 12y ago

I'm in the midst of a pretty similar house-hunt to this guy here in Denver. I currently live Downtown and love it. I'm not willing to move outside of the city, so we're focusing on a proper house in one of the city-center neighborhoods. Proximity to a grocery store is absolutely at the top of my list. I like to buy my food as fresh as possible and generally only buy for the meal I'm cooking that night. So having not only a grocery store, but a high-quality one, near me is incredibly important. The difference of even a block or two is huge when it comes to something you want to walk to on a very regular basis. Sure I pay attention to things like the crime rate, but in most cities it's a nearly meaningless stat. The actual chances of being involved in a crime are very low in any neighborhood in my city (and this is true of almost every city in the U.S.). I think this is true of people predisposed to urban living. We're simply willing to tolerate a bit of crime risk in exchange for everything else that goes along with it. From a technology point of view, I imagine it makes online real-estate very difficult to optimize for. There are so many different priorities that people have that you have to find ways to build general data-mining tools that are still actually usable by most folks. That's a tough challenge, one I don't think anyone has come close to cracking. For instance walk scores seem to be the closest to what I want and they tell you virtually nothing. Don't get me started on how we "rank" schools too:)

maxerickson 12y ago
I bet walkable fresh correlates pretty well with lower crime (especially within an urban context, but I would expect it to work even when you ignore development patterns/density).