By some accounts, the global financial crisis of 2008 can be blamed on owners of homes financing via sub-prime mortgages in Southern California, who defaulted and walked away. What isn't told is that many of these homeowners endured long commutes to work — and as anyone in urban sprawls such as Los Angeles knows, that's not uncommon.
This week, new technology introduced by Windermere, a prominent Pacific Northwest realty firm, can help would-be homebuyers figure out their commuting times before committing to a house too far away. Windermere licensed an online tool from a firm called Inrix that can calculate, accurately, the drive times from home to work locations, The New York Times's Bits blog reports.
Inrix Drive Time is already in use and is featured on the detail page for each Windermere property, and executives believe that presenting would-be home buyers with more precise commuting times during their initial Web searches for properties will help prevent transactions from souring later, according to the Times.
"If you can eliminate objections sooner in the process, it means you're going to close the deal that much faster," said York Baur, chief executive of Windermere Solutions, the technology arm of the real estate firm.
Inrix's commute estimates are based on more than 100 million drivers around the world who have navigation systems in their cars that anonymously report their locations and speed to Inrix.
Combined with data Inrix receives from road sensors, the company can predict traffic flow accurately. Drive-time estimates are updated every 90 days to reflect changing road conditions. The company even has algorithms that add additional information, said Kevin Foreman, general manager of geoanalytics for Inrix.
