Gentrify is a new site reminiscent of one of the grandaddies of real estate mashups; HousingMaps.com.
Only better. It scrapes San Francisco property listings from craigslist but adds a number of unique filters that will help you find the perfect pad.
And by ‘you’ I mean, yes ‘you’ – the yuppie (see Stuff White People Like).
Gentrify’s goal is to help you pick the perfect neighborhood you can move in to and gentrify. You can filter your searches by whether the homes take dogs and even figure out how close you are to your favorite gluten free restaurants, sushi bars, tea rooms and pilates clinics. Among many others.
Gentrify has dozens of filters you can layer on. I love it.
That’s not all. The individual listing pages rock too. They clearly designed and with a fantastic written description of the neighborhood – check out the ‘what will living here be like?’ section.
Seriously though – I think this is a great trend to watch and one I hope catches on elsewhere. I believe adding ‘Real World’ filters are going to be what helps differentiate your choices in sea of boring me-too search tools.
Also, adding context to a real estate search is going to be key (see Neighborhood Search Comes Back) moving forward in this market; especially as consumers adopt a more measured and drawn out buying decision.
Were a broker web site (especially with it’s IDX feeds for better listing coverage) to give me this many options, it’d be a winner in my books.
And it could be easy to get your hands on too. Gentrify was an entry in Rails Rumble 2008 and was coded by team 734m. Give ’em a shout.