Is there a way to search real estate by WalkScore?

June 21, 2021 9:29 AM

Despite the crazy, crazy real-estate market, we are looking for a new home. I love walkable neighborhoods. I love browsing real estate on Zillow, and am pleased that they include a home's WalkScore on every listing. I am not not pleased, however that this score is at the bottom of every page. Is there a site (or easy method) for browsing real-estate listings by walkability?

I suspect the answer to this question is: "No, no such site exists." This leads to a follow-up question. Has anyone worked with the Zillow API (or Redfin API or RMLS API)? Can you tell me how easy it is to access and work with the data?

While it's been 20 years since I did in coding, there's a part of me that would love to write some sort of simple scraper that took info from an API and converted it to a simple, scannable format that included the info I want/need. (I have no kids and don't care about schools. I want to know when the home was built, how big the lot is, and what the WalkScore is.)

Basically, I want to know how to get alternate views of real-estate info without all of the baggage Zillow and Redfin add.

I eagerly await the zero responses this question will generate. ;)

posted by jdroth to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

https://www.walkscore.com/homes-for-sale might get close?

For example https://www.walkscore.com/homes-for-sale/search/OR/Portland got me a map where I could put in a commuting addresses, and gotta-haves like "coffee within a 10 minute walk" and "groceries within a 5 minute walk." And even "commute to XYZ work address in less than ABC minutes" by foot/bike/car/transit.

Sorry if this screws up the 0 count you were expecting!
posted by adekllny at 9:43 AM on June 21, 2021 [5 favorites]

When we worked with our realtor in 2013 we learned that their existing MLS tools included the ability to provide search polygons in addition to zip code, radius, and other searches. We provided a drawn outline of the specific parts of town that met our needs for transit access and walkability, something you might be able to do based on the WalkScore Portland search linked above. Caution: realtor told us we were the first client who’d ever done that.
posted by migurski at 11:09 AM on June 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Oooh. @Adekllny, that WalkScore tool is what I'm looking for. It's ALMOST perfect. I say "almost" because it seems to have a database corruption issue. The homes that it shows in the tool don't align with Zillow. Something's off. But the idea of it is great, and I can certainly use it to help narrow my search of various neighborhoods. Thank you.
posted by jdroth at 11:11 AM on June 21, 2021

What I did to solve this, is I looked in the are we were looking to purchase, and made a Zillow custom search that was the "walkable" area. Basically I coded the walkability into custom searches in zillow.
posted by bbqturtle at 11:17 AM on June 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

Estately does this out of the box. They also have very useful “how loud” and “broadband speed” scores (although you can’t filter by those).
posted by hedgehog at 12:31 PM on June 21, 2021 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Whoa. @Hedgehog, Estately is very nice. It looks like it takes the Zillow/Redfin stuff and refines it. I'll have to play with it. I write about personal finance and I'd heard of Estately but never looked at it. This might be worth an article. ;)
posted by jdroth at 12:48 PM on June 21, 2021 [1 favorite]