Walkscore.com – Score the ‘Walkability’ of Your Home

There is something wonderful about living somewhere that is walking distance to everything. In Orange County, it’s a not particularly common. During my brief couple years of living in San Francisco my husband and I would park our car Friday night and not move it until Monday morning. We walked to restaurants, movies, dry cleaner – everything. And I enjoyed my high school and college years in Ashland, Oregon where everything was just a short walk. It definitely gives you a greater sense of community - a neighborhood.

There is a relatively new site that can assist buyers in ‘finding a walkable neighborhood’. The site is www.walkscore.com. It will score an address from 1 to 100 on the walkablility to restaurants, grocery stores, entertainment, schools, libraries, etc.

I recently put in the address of my newest listing, 35 Paseo Simpatico. The Walk Score was 86 out of 100! That may be one of the highest I’ve seen yet. This home is close to the Library, shopping, restaurants, parks, grocery stores, movies…..My house on the other hand, typical suburban home in Las Flores, had a Walk Score of 8 out of 100. Has me missing Ashland just a bit……somebody will luck out on 35 Paseo Simpatico!

Updated July 17th: Someone just shared with me http://drivescore.fizber.com/. This provides a score of accessibility of a property. 35 Paseo Simpatio scored 88……My own home scored 82 out of 100. Clearly Paseo Simpatico is much closer to everything so I’m not sure the score is as valuable as the Walk Score, but my ego was soothed just a bit. For what it’s worth…