Researching The Town / Neighborhood You Want To Move To

[kimthebride]

I looked around, and was suprised to not find a thread on how to research the town or neighborhood you are looking to move to. Soooo...

Does anyone have some good links or tips on how to:
1. Get (free) data on a town you are considering?
- the school rankings
- crime rates
- commuter info
- community activities, like Moms groups, welcome wagons, play groups, social events
- parks & other recreation

2. Figure out whether you'll like the neighborhood?
- how to tell if there are like-minded people there, say with kids your kids age or similar interests
- the safety of that neighborhood itself
- what there is to do within walking distance

I am sure I am missing something here...but I think you see what I am getting at. We're looking at the house we're hopefully going to live in until we're old & gray. We'd like to make sure we pick the right town for us, and the right neighborhood for the kids.

Any tips or advice is appreciated!

----

Things I have been looking at so far are:
- On realtor websites the "Community Profile" reports which give terribly boring stats like median age and population.
- There's the sex offender registry, its likely good to make sure the house isn't next to a predator
- Just looking around the neighborhood to see if the homes and yards are kept up, show signs of pride in their homes
- Checking out the back yards for swingsets & toys

[sinderstorm]

One thing DH and I did was we went to the neighborhood twice, and went for a walk. Once one nice evening after work, and again on a Sunday afternoon. Gave us a feel for what the neighborhood was like, as well as walking distance to the park and elementary school.

We also drove around that part of the town (we're actually moving a town south of where we currently are) and found the grocery store, Target, post office, and other retailers that we frequent often. We timed our respective commutes from our current jobs.

I guess for us, we had previously mapped out what neighborhoods/part of town we thought we wanted to be in. We did what we could to get a feel for the neighborhood without getting creepy about it. Made sure it had what we're looking for. We'll see how well it all comes together when we close later this month.

[kimthebride]

We also drove around that part of the town (we're actually moving a town south of where we currently are) and found the grocery store, Target, post office, and other retailers that we frequent often.
What a great idea! As a SAHM I find I am ALWAYS at Target or picking up groceries or in need of a 24 hour CVS, and of course any close swingsets. :)

[LeslieR]

Kim, you're in the MOMS Club now, aren't you? What about contacting the chapter of the town you want to move to and asking them some of your questions? I think hearing it from the horse's mouth so to speak is the best way to go. And who would know better about the kinds of things that you want to know than other moms?:)

[kimthebride]

No, I've never joined/met with a MOMs group - we have so much going on where i live now so I've never needed to. But that's a good idea - I can reach out and see what info I can get from them. :) Thanks!

[Renrel]

For school information try GreatSchools.net.

If you are in a metropolitian area check if there is a local magazine which might to town reviews. I know Boston Magazine does this once a year on towns and schools.

Do a google seach of the towns to see if they have a website. The town we are trying to move to has an amazing site where can even find property reports and assessments for the prior 10 yrs as well as maps of streets, school districts, parks and other stuff.

Visit the towns and think of a place you might be able to strike up a conversation with locals. Easier if you have kids or are expecting. Then you can go to playgrounds or even an ice cream shop mid summer.

Realtors

[meatpie]

Try to visit the area at night and during the day, weeknights and on weekends a few times.

[greenbunny]

One thing we did was to get to the neighborhood early on a Monday and then drive to work from there to get an idea of the commute. We actually ruled out one community by doing this because the traffic snarl was so awful.

[Ummm]

came across this forum today
http://www.city-data.com/forum/

[keska]

Look at the local police department website and see if they public crime statistics by neighborhood. Some places have a search function that lets you pull up basic crime statistics within a certain radius of a specific address.

[justHB]

I know this sounds so superficial, but one thing DH and I did was check out the cars in the neighborhood. Lots of minivans means lots of kids, lots of trucks parked in front of people's houses might mean constant construction noice, lots of hybrids means eco-conscious commuters ... I think you can tell a lot about a neighborhood by the type of cars parked in the driveways. We've been in our 'hood almost a year now and the only two houses that ever cause any sort of trouble are the ones that we immediately pointed out based on the vehicles parked there.

[kimthebride]

justHB
Funny, when we were driving around the neighborhood I also looked at the cars. :) I find cars to usually be a 'personal' item that's pretty reflective of the owners. So well-kept cars, the kid of cars, ones with carseats in them, etc were good indicators of who lived in the homes.

One thing my realtor suggested (which if I witnessed someone doing this, would make me nervous LOL!) was just sitting in my car at the end of the street for 3-4 hours to see who came & went, how often the street was travelled, if anyone was walking kids or dogs around, and so on.

Another thing I looked for (and I am so not trying to ring up controversy here) were dogs and "Beware Of Dog" signs. As someone who has been attacked by dogs twice and had a nephew viciously attacked, I may stray away from a neighborhood that had a lot of "attack dogs" as pets there. But this is of course a personal-preference thing....

[EJM]

On the "Beware of Dog" signs, we own a dog and I am a dog lover -- but if I were to drive around and see a number of those signs, that to me would signal a security problem (I think sometimes people put those up to "scare" people away) in the area.

My suggestion, hang out at the local parks on a weekend. Where we are moving the yards are teeny-tiny, so many people take their children to parks to play. Despite how small the burb is, the number of parks is amazing. We've been hanging out at the parks and driving by to see if we'd like to potentially spend time with these people. :)

[ginad724]

justHB
One thing my realtor suggested (which if I witnessed someone doing this, would make me nervous LOL!) was just sitting in my car at the end of the street for 3-4 hours to see who came & went, how often the street was travelled, if anyone was walking kids or dogs around, and so on.


This may not be a bad idea (though 3 or 4 hours is a loooong time!). Our street seemed very quiet when we visited at night or weekends. Turns out it's a cut-through street for commuters and gets extrememly busy during the rush hours. People also use it to avoid the main street, and drive very fast on my one-lane street. It's something I really wish I would have known before buying and probably would be the one thing about my house that would make me move. We also talked to any neighbors we saw just to get more of a personal perspective from people that actually lived there.

Good luck!

[Sabrina]

I got school data from the state's Dept of Education website when we were house hunting. There was better data there than on the Great Schools site.

[aprilshowers]

If there is a neighborhood association, you may be able to find their meeting minutes online.

Another idea is to search for Yahoo groups for the town/neighborhood. I am part of an active yahoo group named [neighborhood]moms. If anyone wanted to get a good feel for the area, it would be a great resource.

[chinita]

We also drove around that part of the town (we're actually moving a town south of where we currently are) and found the grocery store, Target, post office, and other retailers that we frequent often. We timed our respective commutes from our current jobs.


That's what we did as well. For me, it was the grocery stores (including Trader Joe;) ), the gym (24 Hr Fitness), Costco, and the commute to our jobs.

We also went to the neighborhood of the houses we were considering at different times of the day and week. We sat in our car, walked around the blocks, and looked at what kinds of people came by. We were surprised many times how quiet it was. We didn't see anybody on many visits and wonder who lived in these neighborhoods??

We also made judgments on cars. We could tell if it was a working class neighborhood if there were lots of trucks (landscaper, construction, cable, etc) versus a more white collar area(VW, BMW, Prius, etc). One house we looked at had a neighbor with a rusted old car on cement blocks in their driveway! It was a total turn-off. There was nothing else like that in the neighborhood. Perhaps that's why that house seem below market price for that area?!?

FYI - We live in Los Angeles and many areas are VERY spotty. It could be a beautiful family friendly cul-de-sac for a few blocks, then a trailer park with industrial buildings a few blocks later. Many times, the listing looks great online and even on Zillow/Google satellite. But once we drove there, it was completely different. It is all about finding that hidden gem of a neighborhood pocket around here.