Selling the 'walkability' factor

With homes, most property characteristics that are attractive to some buyers hold the potential to turn others off.

Swimming pools promise exercise and recreation to some, but loom as a dangerous nuisance and maintenance problem to others. Some buyers think gated communities are tony and prestigious, while others find them exclusive and bourgeois. Urban/suburban, condo/single-family home -- heck, I've even had clients who didn't want to live in our town's best school district because they don't want kids walking on their lawns!

But there's one home characteristic in my world that lately seems to be unanimously sought after by buyers of all sorts: walkability.

I have only ever had people ask to be in a highly walkable location. Perhaps it's just the nature of my business, but I've never had anyone express a distaste at the idea that cute shops or popular parks are within a short stroll away.

Even folks who want places with lots of privacy, views that can only be had from a hilltop or other characteristics that normally go along with remoteness still would have their dream home be in a walkable location, if they had their druthers (although most of them acknowledge the impossibility of this).

Obviously, to be "walkable," a home must be located within some semblance of proximity to stuff people want to walk to. Shops, grocery stores, restaurants, libraries, parks, places of worship -- and a mixture of these is ideal. It's not a selling point that a home is near one without any of the rest, really.

And, of course, "walking distance" means very different things to different people. I have clients who feel like a quarter-mile warrants driving, and others who will walk several miles to their main strip just for fun.

But true walkability has a much more intangible connotation to it, beyond simple distance to amenities. You know, you've been through those areas or towns that have districts you might call "stroll-ey/shop-py." They just have a walkable feel to them, right?

Well, the folks over at Walkscore.com have rendered the intangible elements of walkability very tangible with their list of elements that make a neighborhood walkable -- I dare you to get through this list without having a "yeeeeah, exactly" moment:

• The neighborhood has a central district -- walkable neighborhoods usually have a main strip.

• Mixed income and uses -- for a neighborhood to be walkable, homes must be near commercial uses, like stores, etc. Ideally, there are also different price points of housing, so neighborhood workers can live within walking distance of their jobs. ...CONTINUED

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