Hoodeo: Online Dating For Neighborhoods (Without The Social Stigma)

As the stigma attached to online dating diminishes and real estate sites continue to boom, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to play matchmaker for neighborhoods and the people who love them. Enter Hoodeo.

Hoodeo, now in beta form, was launched by the team behind eppraisal.com and works on the basis of one idea: It's better to find the right neighborhood first, and then find the right home within it. How does Hoodeo determine the right neighborhood for you without knowing you, your lifestyle, your family or your DNA? With a brief questionnaire, of course!

The Hoodeo Q & A is short and not terribly dry. My favorite question would have to be:

"Ugh… work… but you have to pay the bills somehow. How would you classify your profession?"

Cute, huh? Based on your answers, Hoodeo creates a list of your top 10 most compatible neighborhoods. The results are placed on a chart which is part Venn Diagram, part dartboard, part fruit pie based on your respective flavors: Lifestyle (Green Apple), Property (Peach) and Price (Blueberry). Dead center is a bull's-eye, but I found it impossible to get one of those no matter how I fudged with the questions. See? It's just like online dating.

If it all sounds too simple, that's because it is. Ultimately, the Q & A is too short to really get an accurate idea about your lifestyle or your needs. Furthermore, regarding Location Location Location! you can't narrow the fields based on your commute (method and time). I don't think it's too much to ask that they add this in later versions given how important it is becoming for some people to avoid long and costly travel times.

Hoodeo has its heart in the right place in trying to bring homebuyers one step closer to true love, but like many sites that make a science of compatibility, what sounds good in theory falls flat in practice. Hoodeo's system doesn't even pry enough information out of you to find that perfect place with perfect, unfeeling, mechanical precision, so the results are particularly disappointing. Until Hoodeo can improve on its system, I say follow your heart...or your real estate agent.