Four Tips for Finding Your Perfect Neighborhood

When it comes to buying a house, finding the right neighborhood can be as important as finding the home itself. Your community will directly influence how you feel about your living space, as the outside influences can creep their way and make you quickly tire with where you live, even if you love your house itself.

When you want to find your perfect neighborhood, many factors are to consider, making it a little hard to know where to start in the considerations.

To help you get started, here are four tips to help you find the right place for your next move!

Know Your Wants and Needs Beforehand

Before you can start looking where to move, you need to consider why you want to move at all.

Your wish list may already include needs for the house, such as bigger space, more rooms, a pool, etc. But it would be best to consider your wants and requirements for the area around your house as well.

Some examples of things to consider for your wish list are proximity for commuting to work, desiring to be closer or further away from the downtown area, closer to certain schools, and walking distance from things like grocery stores and parks.

Knowing what you need in a neighborhood beforehand will help you determine whether an area is worth looking into further.

Know Your Absolute Top Price

There’s knowing how much you want to spend on a house, and then there’s knowing how much you can spend on a house—the important distinction between the two. If your dream neighborhood features homes closer to the top of your ideal budget, there’s a good chance you’re going to go over that in biddings – especially in today’s competitive markets. By setting yourself your absolute top price, you’ll know when too much is too much and when it’s time to walk away from a deal. Getting a pre-approved mortgage will help you in this regard, letting you know what the banks will approve you for and avoiding getting your hopes up for places out of your range.

Research, Research, Research!

Once you know what you want, it’s time to start searching the areas you think might help fit the bill. You can find tons of information on areas either online, with apps, or by working with real estate agencies.

Besides making sure the areas check off your wish list, consider researching things like walk scores, crime rates of the area, and history of the area. Working with a real estate agency, in this case, can be very helpful, as they may provide you with much useful information on the area, including market trends that may not be easily found online or upcoming projects in the area.

Visit the Area, and Preferably at Different Times

If at all possible, visit the neighborhood in question at different times of day and both weekdays and weekends. This will help you understand what your daily commute in the area might be like. For example, you might learn that many families in the area drive their kids to school in the morning, causing congestion. Or that every weekend the neighboring park hosts sporting events causing limited street parking. Perhaps the neighborhood is nice by day but can become a little uncertain by nightfall. More simple reasons may be found by doing this, such as discovering stores not listed online or seeing the quality of nearby grocery and convenience stores.