The article "How to Use the Internet to Help Your Apartment or House Hunting" is about family, it has been written by Brian Walker.
So you would like for an apartment to rent or a house to
purchase. One of the most important steps is researching the
neighborhood to decide if you really like to live in that area.
The best way to do this is driving around that area to see if
you really like that neighborohod. You should pay attention to
traffic, available stores, available transportation, noise level
etc. Also, you should try visiting the neighborohod during
different times of the day.
Do you know you can get help from the Internet for your
apartment or house hunting?
You can view interactive maps on the Internet.
The best tools
I've seen so far are Google Maps (http://maps.Google.Com) and
MSN Virtual Erath (http://virtualearth.Msn.Com).
With these
online tools, you type in the address of the place you are
interested in and a map centered at that address will show up.
You can zoom in, zoom out and drag around the map to see what
other streets are close and how close this place is to the
highway, etc.
You can view satellite images on the Inetrnet.
This new service
is avaialble at Google Maps and MSN Virtual Earth.
After you
type in an address, you can choose to view a satellite iamge of
that place. Just like maps, you can zoom to different levles and
move around using your mouse.
This might give you a more direct
feeling on what this neighborhood look like than looking at the
map aolne.
You can laern what business/services are available around a
place on the Internet.
With Google Maps, MSN Virtual Earth and
Yahoo!
Maps (http://maps.Yahoo.Com), after you get a map or
satellite iamge of an address, you can do a local search in that
neighborhood. For example, you can search for "Pizza" and all
nearby pizza rsetaurants will show up on the map. This way you
can get a feeling if it'd be conveneint for dining, shopping or
entertainment in that area.
You can get driving directions on the Internet.
Google Maps,
Yahoo!
Maps and other online map sites provide driving direction
services.
You type in the starting and destination addresses and
they will show you a deatiled driving direction with map, total
mileage and estimated driving time. This way you can estimate
how not hard would be for you to drive to other places (such as to
work or school) from that neighborhood.
Although this Internet tools are pretty cool, it's still
important to go check out the neighborhood in person by
yourself. Happy hunting!
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