Real Estate Amenities - Location and Telecommunications

I deal with location all day every day. One client wants to be close to his work and have a short commute, another client wants to be near his daughter's private school. Another client wants to be close to downtown and all of the arts and entertainment options that are growing downtown offers.

What is not unique in their searches, is that to them, location matters. It matters a lot. As the saying goes, the three most important things in real estate are location, location, location. Location got me thinking as I was browsing Facebook the other night and a friend of mine was having trouble getting internet service to her rural home. It's actually a pretty common question I have to deal with while helping people buy and sell property at Nolin Lake. In today's society, we expect access to high-speed internet.

Growing up I lived in Pewee Valley. Most residents can tell you that a big part of the city is a cell phone dead zone. There just isn't a tower located close enough to provide a strong enough signal for use indoors. For most residents, they would gladly drop a call or two to maintain the beauty and serenity of the landscape. But what if you are required to be on call for your job? What if you really need to have cell phone coverage? You probably wouldn't want to put Pewee Valley on your search list. My wife and I nearly switched from Sprint to another cell phone carrier earlier this year because we couldn't get decent coverage in town. Then all of a sudden Sprint started turning on their new 4G network in town, specifically in the Springhurst area where I live and our quality of signal and download speeds dramatically improved.

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a geek. I love technology. When an email came across my inbox asking if I wanted to get involved with city officials, do-ers, and other geeks in an attempt to get ultra-high speed internet to our fair city, I, of course, said yes. I was only able to attend two or three meetings, but from those meetings came two big things. The city of Louisville released an "RFI" or a Request for Information in an attempt to attract a company who would be interested in providing fiber to the door, or last mile fiber to consumers. 

Google brought their ultra high-speed internet fiber service to parts of Kansas City. They have created "fiberhoods" -- places where the internet is blazing fast. I'm talking gigabit fast. That's geek speak for really fast. To help illustrate just how fast that is, visit https://fiber.google.com/about/ and run the test. Think other geeks want to move to those neighborhoods fiberhoods?  Do you think businesses want to locate in those areas?  Absofreakinglutely!

At what point do you think we will have search criteria in our multiple listing service so we can specify that we are only interested in homes that have 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and have fiber internet service? Or homes that have 4g connectivity? We already choose our hotels by their tv channel selections and if they offer wifi or not.

How much longer until our "telecommunication location" is just as important as our physical location?  I'm betting it won't be long!