I've manged to travel to quite a few of the major cities in North America and have witnessed the difference in levels of traffic and the locals perception of distance and time when it comes to navigating the city streets in a car.

Drive Times in Different Cities

Some where like San Francisico has a totally different dynamic to some where like Guadalajara in Mexico. Both are big cities, but Guadalajara has over 4 million residents and the driving culture us totally different!

Los Angles is a good example of not being able to measure the travel time in terms of distance from point A to B. When suggesting to friends in LA that this will take about 30 minutes to drive they usually reply.."that will be more like 1 and a half hours...if we can beat a SIG alert!" Apperently SIG alerts are to inform the residents of high volumes of traffic which cause even more congestion.

Relocating to Nashville

So moving to Nashville, people have a tendancy to use the pricing of the city they are leaving as the benchmark for home prices in Nashville as well as applying the drive time "equations". To try and give people an idea of how far, in terms of travelling time in a car. trhat say Franklin is to Nashville I created the Drive Time Map for Nashville.

Drive Times From Your Nashville Home

The starting point for most people when they know they are moving to Nashville and they start looking for a home, is to base the actual area to search on the drive time from their place of work. The Ashton Real Estate Group Realtors can help you withthis by creating a personal drive time map based on the office location or even the location of a prefferred school. This can really help you narrow down the areas you should be researching.

Setting up a Quick Home Search

One of the first mistakes people make, when they don't know the Nashville real estate market is to use the MLS search to search all the homes available, create a price range and then narrow down by number of bedrooms, bathrooms and set a minimum sqft. The results you then see are sorted by price, and as with most people, the tendancy is to look at the homes that are visually appealing and are at the lower end of their price range.

Everyone wants a good deal so when you search for a $350,000 to $400,000, 4 bedroom, 3 bath home and see a home for sale, that is significantly less than some of the other homes like have a similar appearance, the tendancy is to explore that home a little further. The benefit of this site is that you will be able to see the location and then use the zoom function to see the location and review it in relation to your office or school location.Usually there is a good explanation for the cheaper homes. They tend to be quite a bit further out from the center of Nashville in places like Bethpage or Portland etc which can then mean a commute of an hour or over!

Customised Searches

The benefit of working with one of the professional realtors of The Ashton Real Estate Group is that we can create a search specifically designed for you based on your search criteria and using whatever drive time you find acceptable.

Search by Mobile Phone App

if you are one of the growing number of people who use there phone for just about everything apart from calling people then you may find this link very useful. you can search all the homes listed for sale in the MLS. Click HERE to see more information and how to download the app top your phone