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Deciding

Moving to a new city for work: shortlisting areas from a distance

How to pick two or three areas before you arrive, without local knowledge.

6 October 2026 · 6 min read · Imperibuild

Start from the office, not the listings

Draw rough circles of travel time from your office at your hours, then look at areas inside them. Listings first means falling for a flat in the wrong place.

Run free checks before the broker visit

A free Commute Check gives you the peak hour range for two destinations. Do it for each candidate area before you spend a weekend visiting.

Measure the shortlist

Once you have three or four flats, Shortlist Compare measures them in the same ten working days, so the comparison is fair.

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Measure the trip you’ll actually make.

Your home, your office, your hours, across ten working days. Typical and bad day time, with the method on the page.