Austin Texas Real Estate Blog

Moving to a new city soon? This particular life event used to be the ultimate stressor. Learning a whole new area, looking for a home, packing up your stuff, arranging for the various services and resources you’ll need all combined in a doozy of a headache and stomach ache. According to this article, not in this day and age.

As the Internet and the World Wide Web matures, there has risen an incredible array of tools a transient person can access to gain advanced knowledge of the new area. Starting with the three major map sites, Google Maps, MapQuest, and Yahoo! Maps, and moving on to GoogleEarth, the possibilities are mind boggling.

All three map services can pinpoint an address, provide driving directions, and locate area businesses. All three also provide aerial images to within a few hundred feet. All three provide real time traffic activity so you can even gauge the severity of rush hour traffic. Google, however, goes one better and, in certain cities, gives you a real life street level view.

GoogleEarth is GoogleMaps on steroids. A downloadable application, GoogleEarth will show you the world. Type in the name of a city, country, or a famous landmark, and you’re virtually flown there in a matter of seconds.

Once you’ve found your new location, given the high price of fuel these days, you might be interested in public transportation. Most major metropolitan areas provide detailed information on their public transportation sites. Simply use the search term ‘public transportation’ along with the city name.

On a national level, don’t overlook the “.gov” sites for information on demographics, crime, and other statistics.

There’s pretty much no end to the information that can be gleaned from the Internet and most cities, anxious to attract new blood, eagerly provide it.