Two Ways to Pick Your Place: Property Features & Neighborhood Analysis

Over the past few weeks, I've been focused on enhancing PickYourPlace's filtering capabilities. My goal was simple: help you find your ideal home by building powerful yet intuitive filtering tools, guided by two key principles: performance and ease of use. I wanted most operations to happen right in your browser while keeping the interface straightforward and logical.

The Two-Part Filtering Approach

I approached filtering with a clear distinction between two types of characteristics:

1. Direct Property Features: Things inherent to the property itself, like value, size, type, and age
2. Contextual Metrics: Broader factors that influence quality of life, such as safety and accessibility

Property-Based Filtering

Two weeks ago, I introduced the first part of this system – a comprehensive property filtering tool. This allows you to filter properties based on:

• Assessed value: from affordable to ultra-luxury
• Property type: detached, duplex, townhouse, apartment
• Age: from new construction to historic properties
• Lot size: from compact to acreage

When you set these criteria, the map immediately updates to show only matching properties. For instance, you might look for mid-range ($600K-1M) detached properties built in the last 6-15 years in NW Calgary.

This view reveals matching properties across various communities, from Tuscany to Rocky Ridge, Royal Oak, and extending to Carrington and Panorama Hills.

Neighborhood Analysis Tools

Today, I'm excited to introduce the second part of our filtering system – neighborhood analysis tools. This feature was inspired by user feedback, including a Reddit comment requesting more granular crime type filtering:

"It would be great to further filter crime types. Theft from vehicles might not be as alarming as a high rate of assault, for example."

Instead of simply filtering out neighborhoods, these tools let you explore different scenarios and compare metrics across communities. Here's how it works:

When you select a property – let's say 197 TUSCANY RIDGE CIRCLE NW – you can:

1. Analyze Safety: Compare crime rates across different categories, for example assault and residential break and enter, among all communities with matching properties
2. Explore Accessibility: View nearby amenities accessible using different transportation modes and within specific travel times

The new safety and accessibility features include a tag-based filtering system. Want to compare assault and violence across different communities? Interested in finding playgrounds within a 15-minute walk? Or perhaps you're looking for nearby supermarkets and cafes? Simply click on the relevant tags to filter the amenities. To reset any filter, just click on the currently selected tag again.

Why Two Different Approaches?

As you explore these new features, you might wonder why we use different filtering approaches for property features versus neighborhood characteristics. The answer lies in how we typically make housing decisions:

• Property features are usually "must-haves" – you likely have specific requirements for size, type, and budget
• Neighborhood characteristics often involve trade-offs and comparisons – you might want to understand how different areas compare in terms of safety or convenience

This two-part system gives you both the tools to find properties that match your essential criteria and the flexibility to analyze and compare neighborhoods based on your priorities.

Try out these new filtering capabilities and let me know how they work for you. Your feedback continues to shape PickYourPlace's development, and I'm excited to keep improving these tools to help you find your perfect home.