1️⃣
You set the priorities
Schools, Chicago/rail access, house-and-yard preference, family amenities and everyday convenience are weighted by the importance you choose.
✨ How it works
The Town Finder is a shortlist tool - not a black-box ranking.
Here is exactly what the current recommendation engine considers, where judgment enters the model, and what families should verify before making a housing decision.
Updated September 9, 2026
2️⃣
We score the fit
The current prototype combines those weighted priorities with a small lifestyle adjustment and a soft budget-fit adjustment.
3️⃣
You verify the address
The result is a starting point. School assignment, taxes, insurance, commute and current home inventory still need address-level research.
Town Finder methodology
How the prototype recommendation engine works.
The current Town Finder is intentionally a preference-fit model, not a universal quality ranking. Each town has editorial scores from 1 to 5 across five dimensions. Your slider choices become weights applied to those dimensions.
| Component | Role in result | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Five weighted priorities | 86% of the base model | Schools, Chicago/rail access, house & yard, family amenities and convenience. |
| Lifestyle preference | Up to 6 percentage points | A small nudge for rail-connected, space-oriented, downtown, convenience or quieter-neighborhood preferences. |
| Budget fit | 8% of the model | Uses the townwide current median sale price as a soft signal. It is not an inventory cutoff. |
Why we do not call the score objective
Some inputs - especially lifestyle, convenience and family-amenity scores - require editorial judgment. We expose that rather than pretending the result is a scientific ranking.
Data we prefer
For factual inputs, NWI Nest prioritizes official town and county sources, Census data, school-system and Indiana Department of Education information, official transit agencies, and clearly identified housing-market sources. Page-level sources are linked wherever practical.
What can change quickly
Housing prices, inventory, tax rates, school boundaries, construction projects, transit schedules and business openings can change. Every guide should show a checked/updated date and families should verify the current status before relying on it.
Best use of Town Finder
Use it to reduce a long list to two or three places worth visiting. Then compare exact homes, exact school assignments, tax records and your real commute.