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Waze for Appraisers

Website

https://waze.com

What It’s Good For

Avoiding traffic jams

Cost

Free

Review

[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=””]M[/fusion_dropcap]y role in marketing at realquantum has me on the go every day.  While I’m not a commercial real estate appraiser hustling to a new property on a constant basis, I am always hustling to meetings, networking coffees, startup events downtown and any number of other places as a busy husband and father.  All of that is in my car.  So, one tool I’ve found to be a huge help is Waze.

How It Works

Google acquired Waze in 2013 for $1 billion.  When the app comes up in conversations, people immediately ask, if they have Google Maps or Apple Maps on their smartphones, why Waze is better?  The key value for me is the crowdsourced traffic information. Waze users report traffic jams, accidents, stalled cars and even police speeding traps (although that may change at the urging of some sheriffs’ departments).  The crowdsourced information together with the traffic data already in Google makes for a very real-time and useful combination.

The product has been helpful not only navigating a new route, but also on the roads I take every day.  For example, it’s possible to get to one popular meeting location via three different routes.  So, as I’m walking to my car, I open Waze and check which route it thinks is fastest.  It’s just a 20 minute drive, so I don’t even need to keep the app running.  I just find out if the best rout is the highway, the parkway or the neighborhood streets.  This of course makes a big difference if I’m hitting the road at 10 am (clear shot) vs 3:45 pm (rush hour starting).

Calendar Integration

Since first using the product, I started including a full correctly-formatted address in the meeting location of appointments even if I know the way.  Then, Waze will alert me when it’s time to leave with enough time to walk to my car.  This has worked really well.

If you happen to live where traffic is not usually a problem, then Waze might not be that big a deal for you – unless you have a commercial appraisal appointment in the suburbs or city in which case, it’s worth downloading.  There are other features for use in carpooling that I haven’t tried.  In general, the application is well-behaved, but sometimes, I find the advertisements can blog a turn direction on the screen which is irritating when I’m in a hurry and I don’t really want to stop at Taco Bell right now thank you!

Update: in July, 2019, Waze and various DOTs started researching ways in which crowdsourcing could improve emergency response times for traffic accidents. Early research shows an improvement of 2:40.

As with all of the tool summaries on the realquantum blog, we don’t get any compensation from the companies we profile.  The mission of realquantum is to share the best software for commercial appraisers as well as smart practices in pursuit of our goal to make every appraiser more successful.  And, the best tool to make commercial appraisers more successful is realquantum.  Click below to find out more by scheduling a demo today.

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