Calculate your commute from any London property on Rightmove

At Rightmove, we’re always coming up with ways to improve your experience when looking for property. With an ever-increasing list of enhancements, we don’t always have time to have a go at everything so sometimes we work with third-parties to lend us a hand.

Mark, a software engineer living in London, recently approached us on Twitter with his Commuter Search extension. Mark’s plugin for Chrome and Firefox shows you how long your commute would be for each London property on Rightmove.

We had a chat with Mark to learn a bit more about the tool.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I’m a 26 year old, married, software engineer near London Bridge who lives in Croydon. My dream home would be a penthouse overlooking the Thames (within a 10 min walk of the office – naturally).

Where did you get the idea for the commuter search?

Last year I was looking for a property that was reasonably priced, in Greater London and that offered an easy commute to work. Unfortunately without an area in mind searching for a property can be very difficult.

One evening on my commute home I was browsing Rightmove, flicking between different areas and looking up what my commute would be from the nearest station when I realised there must be a better way. What if the commute time to my workplace was listed for each property?

How long did the ‘Commuter Search’ take to create?

I managed to get the basic functionality working in a couple of hours; I used that version to help me find my current flat in Croydon.

Recently, I gave a friend a copy who was house hunting in London. He found it so useful he convinced me to polish it up and release it. Since then it has evolved a fair bit and I have lost track of the number of evenings I have spent on it.

How do you use it?

All you need to do is set at least one postcode that you regularly travel to (e.g. your office, your partner’s office or even your favourite restaurant) then just browse Rightmove as normal.

Commuter Homes London will then add your commute times automatically to each property listing.

When I used it for my property search I would search for ‘London’, set my max budget and then ordered properties by ‘most recent’… but it works with any Rightmove search criteria.

Is it easy to install?

Just one click to install! Get it now: http://commuterhomes.london