I came across a couple of websites in Money Magazine we thought you might be interested in.

The first is WalkScore.com. This site calculates the walkability of an address based on the distance from the house to nearby amenities. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking. If you are interested in being within walking distance of restaurants, shops, libraries, parks, etc, you will enjoy this website.

I also have this website application on my iPhone and it is ver cool.

Next is DIYorNot.com. This site helps you compare the time and cost of doing a project yourself vs hiring a local contractor.  For example, the cost of having a professional replace a stove hood is $538 vs a 'do it yourself' cost of $400. Costs can be adjusted by Zip code. 

Nathan