This is a guest post written by Matt Gamboa.

There’s a small piece of information that you don’t really think about when looking up places on a map. If you’re looking for a house to buy, you’ll pay attention to the cost and size details of the house – and usually the location. The location is important, and what you may not often think about directly is how “walkable” that house is, especially if its in the city.

Fortunately we have a web service called Walk Score. This very useful service gives you a score out of 100 based on how walkable your address is. It makes this determination based on everything that is around the address, including parks, restaurants, bus stops, grocery stores, coffee shops, etc. Based on what’s around, the address gets a score in one of these ranges.

Walk Score’s goal is to one day become a standard in real estate overview. You always look at bedrooms and bathrooms. Their goal is for you to automatically turn to their service one day, as well.

The website is not only limited to a score, they also show all of the elements that gave your address its rating on a map. You can find, visually, what is around the address and click on those items for more information. Obviously, higher walk scores will translate to a lot more amenities around the location.

The company has been busy trying to expand its product, and recently launched another type of score, a Transit Score™. Like the walk score, the transit score measures how accessible public transportation for an address provided. Currently, they are gathering ideas for a Bike Score by posing the question, “What’s in a Bike Score?” on their blog.

If you’re a developer, you should check out Deploy 2010 on Monday, November 08, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM (PT). Deploy 2010 is an all-inclusive conference for technology builders to give you new tools to create the applications of tomorrow. The conference will be held at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.

Let Walk Score Choose Your Neighborhood

This is a guest post written by Matt Gamboa.

Are zou looking for zee house? Or perhapz zee zestimate on what zee home would zell for? Zillow looks to help the real estate savvy consumer with all things related to the market.

Co-created by Microsoft all-star and Expedia brain-child Rich Barton, Zillow looks to empower all parties in the real estate system with the knowledge needed to make their real estate search or sale easy as can be. The site is largely community-driven, there is an “Advice” area where users seeking some answers can post questions and get answers from other users who’ve been through the same situation, or from mortgage and real estate agents who have professional knowledge. This bringing together of all parties into one online community helps bridge the gap between seller and buyer.

Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink were looking for a new house around the same time and found it extremely difficult to find the information they were looking for. They felt it should not be so hard to buy a house, and decided to make a service specifically for that. The name Zillow came from the concept of zillions of data points for homes. Your home is also where you sleep every night on a pillow… Zillow. This is also where the term “Zestimate,” a term coined by Zillow to give an analytical prediction of what a home is worth, comes from.

Along with home information placed interactively on a map, Zillow also offers some unique, useful resources such as Dueling Digs; which shows the same area in two different houses and lets you vote for which is better. There’s also a Make Me Move option, where you can set a price that would make you sell your house. Users can see that price an act upon it if you’re lucky! If you’re looking for or a cool, fun way to search for real estate, Zillow offers that environment.

If you’re a developer, you should check out Deploy 2010 on Monday, November 08, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM (PT). Deploy 2010 is an all-inclusive conference for technology builders to give you new tools to create the applications of tomorrow. The conference will be held at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.

Do You Zleep on Your Zillow?

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I recently attended the WTIA Fast Pitch Forum & Technology Showcase. The conference featured two dozen of the of the hottest technology companies in Washington presenting their business in a competition for “Best In Show”. RedFin is an online Realtor agency that allows you to search for and set up appointments to see home right from your own office.

Probably the coolest thing about RedFin is the fact that they refund half of their commission right back to you! They also perform better, too. According to the Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) that brokers use to record deals, Redfin negotiates a bigger discount off list price than traditional brokers.

If you’re in the market for a new home, you definitely want to consider checking out RedFin. You’ll save yourself a bunch of hassle, and a lot of money.

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RedFin

1. The “moving” is actually finished now
2. Unpacking boxes will take longer than expected – need help
3. Ponzi’s starting to feel better
4. I’m starting to get a post-nasal drip
5. Spent too much at Target tonight for incidentals
6. Have 2,000 emails waiting for me to address
7. Pixie is snoring at Ponzi’s feet
8. Wedding tasks kick into high gear tomorrow
9. Ponzi is not snoring yet
10. Completely forgot to take a shower today – oops
11. Vista’s Windows Live Mail’s IMAP spam filter is rancid
12. New refigerator, washer, and dryer (all LG) coming in the morning
13. Ponzi didn’t put anything fun in our wedding registry

Another “Moving” Day

1. We signed documents for our house this morning.
2. Ponzi and I became happy new homeowners this afternoon.
3. Half of our “old home” is stuffed in boxes right now.
4. Ponzi and I decided to spend the night in our new house tonight.
5. Wicket and Pixie are digging their new digs.
6. Domino’s Pizza guy just hit our doorstep.
7. We have to drive back to help the movers move things here tomorrow morning.
8. This pull-out sofabed is quite uncomfortable.
9. Our gas fireplace really heats up the room quickly.
10. I’ll upload a high-def video home tour for you as soon as I can.

Homeowners