Why did I create Locus Quarter and why it should help you

I was actively searching for houses, to buy one. 10's of houses on various house search websites like funda.nl. When we search for a house/property, we also try to find out what are the things near that property, that are important to us. Like: Grocery, Bus stop, School etc. These preferences, vary from person to person.

Every time, I liked a house, I had to open Google Maps, put in the house address, search for places around me with different criteria, time taken to reach destinations, mode of transport and so on.

Well, I thought, as I know, what to search for, in the houses like price range, location etc and also places/amenities near by, can I not automate this?

Now, when I wake up in the morning, I have an email which

• Filtered list of the houses based on my criteria
• The places/amenities near that house
• Distance and travel time to those places in various modes of transport
• Distance to my office (a place where you go almost everyday)

Table of contents

• Why did I create Locus Quarter and why it should help you
• Features of Locus Quarter
• Sources used
• Getting started
  • Get your Google API Key
  • Configuring GMail for Email (Optional)
  • Baseline configuration before execution
• Execute & Enjoy the results
• Sample Output

Features of Locus Quarter

• House/Property preferences

  • Search houses in single/multiple localities
  • Price range for the localities
  • Can be easily enhanced to add/remove other search criterias as well

• Places/Amenities near the house/property

  • Types of places/amenities like, school, supermarket etc
  • Mode of travel from the house to those places/amenities like, Cycling, Walking etc
  • Number of such amenities to be found

• Fixed Address (like Office) and mode of travel to those fixed addresses

• Email on or off and Email to multiple receipients using GMail

Sources used

• RSS Feeds of funda.nl
• Google Maps API's
• Gmail API's

Getting started

Get your Google API Key

• Get your Google API key to access Google Maps & Geolocation Services - Select Maps, Routes, Directions (all options)
• Note: Google API has now imposed limits on free usage for the developer community, check your quota limits and use it cautiously.

Configuring GMail for Email (Optional)

Note: Email is optional (default off). I have done this since I found the setup of gmail, tricky for beginners

• Enable your GMail API from your account - Save the credentials.json/client_secret.json (filename as defined in your configuration file)
• gmail-python-quickstart.json - Generate this and save it as filename as defined in your configuration file. This file contains access token and refresh token

Baseline configuration before execution

• Use Python 3.7
• Install dependencies (in an virtual env, if you please to and use python 3.7)

  pip install -r requirements.txt

• Update the config-locus-quarter.ini with the API Key
• Update the config-locus-quarter.ini as per your search criteria (Example in the repository as example-config-locus-quarter.ini)

Execute & Enjoy the results

Retrieve details from the RSS feeds (URL configured)

python locus_quarter.py

Retrieve details only for specific address

python locus_quarter.py --address="Henriette Bosmanslaan 2, 1187 HH Amstelveen, Netherlands"

You can have multiple configuration files, by default config-locus-quarter.ini is referenced. To use a customized configuration file named config-mini-locus-quarter.ini

python locus_quarter.py --config="config-mini-locus-quarter.ini"

Combining address and customized configuration file

python locus_quarter.py --config="config-mini-locus-quarter.ini" --address="Henriette Bosmanslaan 2, 1187 HH Amstelveen, Netherlands"

If you have configured your email using GMail, you can get emails by adding a flag --email=true :

python locus_quarter.py --email=true #Retrieve details from the RSS feeds

python locus_quarter.py --config="config-mini-locus-quarter.ini" --email=true #Specific configuration file based

python locus_quarter.py --config="config-mini-locus-quarter.ini" --address="Henriette Bosmanslaan 2, 1187 HH Amstelveen, Netherlands" --email=true #Specific configiration file and specific address

Sample Output

The email will have a nice subject, Locus Quater. It can be sent to mutiple receipients. Output can also be watched on the console.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Henriëtte Bosmanslaan 2, 1187 HH Amstelveen, Netherlands
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Facility Type:grocery_or_supermarket
Facility Name:Olivier's Bakkerskar
Travel type:walking Distance:0.9 km Time:11 mins
Travel type:transit Distance:0.9 km Time:11 mins
Travel type:bicycling Distance:0.9 km Time:2 mins
Facility Type:grocery_or_supermarket
Facility Name:AH Maalderij
Travel type:walking Distance:0.7 km Time:9 mins
Travel type:transit Distance:0.7 km Time:9 mins
Travel type:bicycling Distance:0.8 km Time:2 mins

Facility Type:transit_station
Facility Name:Amstelveen, Sacharovlaan
Travel type:walking Distance:0.4 km Time:5 mins
Travel type:transit Distance:0.4 km Time:5 mins
Travel type:bicycling Distance:0.4 km Time:1 min
Facility Type:transit_station
Facility Name:Amstelveen, Noorddammerweg
Travel type:walking Distance:0.5 km Time:6 mins
Travel type:transit Distance:0.5 km Time:6 mins
Travel type:bicycling Distance:0.5 km Time:1 min

Facility Type:school
Facility Name:AmstelWijs, stichting voor openbaar primair onderwijs
Travel type:walking Distance:0.9 km Time:11 mins
Travel type:transit Distance:0.9 km Time:11 mins
Travel type:bicycling Distance:0.9 km Time:2 mins
Facility Type:school
Facility Name:Public Elementary School De Westwijzer
Travel type:walking Distance:0.7 km Time:9 mins
Travel type:transit Distance:0.7 km Time:9 mins
Travel type:bicycling Distance:0.7 km Time:2 mins

Fixed Addresses
Travel type:transit To:Claude Debussylaan 88, 1077 XX Amsterdam, Netherlands Distance:8.4 km Time:28 mins
Travel type:transit To:Bijlmerdreef 101, 1102 BP Amsterdam, Netherlands Distance:11.6 km Time:45 mins
Travel type:driving To:Claude Debussylaan 88, 1077 XX Amsterdam, Netherlands Distance:8.1 km Time:15 mins
Travel type:driving To:Bijlmerdreef 101, 1102 BP Amsterdam, Netherlands Distance:10.9 km Time:18 mins
Travel type:bicycling To:Claude Debussylaan 88, 1077 XX Amsterdam, Netherlands Distance:7.8 km Time:25 mins
Travel type:bicycling To:Bijlmerdreef 101, 1102 BP Amsterdam, Netherlands Distance:11.5 km Time:38 mins
+-------------------------------------------------------------+