What does Walk Score mean for a First Time Home Buyer

Walking is good for  health and savings

While I was showing homes  to my young couple clients, they asked me to get them a home with the lowest walk score. Heard this first time?! What is this walk score anyways? Most of us don’t know about it but believe me it is becoming a new concept in home buying or renting. Walk score is emerging as a new trend in the minds of people when they plan to buy/rent their first home. As you would have guessed, a walk score is a measure of closeness of many facilities close to your place of residence.  The walk score is measured over a scale of 0-100 with 100 being the best. A walkshed is defined as a distance from your place of living to the amenities like school, hospital, shopping centre/mall, arena, library, restaurants and eateries etc. A walkshed is believed to be less than 1 mile from your place of residence.

Walking is just a personal option. But, if Americans, as an example,  trade their cars for walking for at least 30 minutes each day, they might be able to reduce the carbon foot print by more than 58 million metric tonnes and 24 billion litres of gas. Isn’t that amazing? The world would be a better place to live in and enjoy.

All those amenities that lie within 1 mile (1.6 Kilometers) of distance are given the higher score while those beyond this are given zero scores. The culminating total of all such amenities together makes the walk score. A score of 90-100 could be termed as walker’s paradise where a resident doesn’t need a car to commute and meet daily needs.

Walk score is measured using  Google™ API and it has some limitations as well. The walk score doesn’t know about the topography of an area, might miss on a few amenities or places of interest like a newly opened Starbucks® or Tim Hortons® or a supermarket. You can always add these to the API to improve the score.  Walk score is only tells you how easy it is to live without a car.

Most of the newcomers to Canada  have difficulty getting a driver’s license which may take at least 8 months or more. Many newcomers can’t  buy a car for some time and want to save on commute expenses.

If you are a newcomer to Brampton, Mississauga or Greater Toronto Area, let me find you either a rental or a resale home with the highest walk score. You can save a lot of money and keep fit at the same time.

Sources
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•Forrest, Brady. "Neighborhood Leader Boards on Walkscore." O'Reilly Radar. 2008. http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/06/neighborhood-leader-boards-on.html
•"Frequently Asked Questions." The Walking Site. http://www.thewalkingsite.com/faq.html
•"Frequently Asked Questions." Walkable Communities, Inc. http://www.walkable.org/faqs.html
•­Slater, Dashka. "Walk the Walk." The Green Issue. The New York Times. 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20Act-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&oref=slogin
•Smart Growth. http://www.smartgrowth.org/
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•Walk Score. http://www.walkscore.com
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•"Walkscore.com." Environmental Building News. BuildingGreen.com. 2008. http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm?fileName=170319a.xml
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