Welcome to the Neighborhood! How to Choose Where to Live

Navigating the real estate market, especially as it currently stands, is a stressful proposition. Whether you’ve already gone through the process of getting pre-approved for a mortgage or you’re just starting to look at potential homes, you probably have a checklist in place that covers what you want in a home.

Some people want a home with an open floor plan that’s ideal for entertaining. Others want a large kitchen with plenty of storage. Other homebuyers look for homes with expansive master suites where they can pamper themselves in solitude.

While it’s certainly important to consider the features of any home that you’re interested in potentially buying, you should also take the time to consider the neighborhood. In the world of real estate, nothing matters more than location.

Before you make your final decision about the home you want to buy, consider these five factors to ensure that you’re moving into the right neighborhood.

Safety

Ultimately, nothing matters more than your safety and the safety of the people in your home. You can find a home that has every feature that you’re looking for in a property, but if it’s in an area with a high crime rate, it’s probably not a good idea to move into it.

How much can you truly enjoy your home if you’re constantly worried about crime in the area?

Fortunately, there are a lot of resources out there that can help you inform yourself about how safe a community is.

Crime Statistics

Finding crime statistics for any neighborhood is as simple as doing a quick online search. While you should certainly look for a home in a safe area, it’s important to understand that there will always be some sort of crime in any place that you’re considering.

Try to find a resource that breaks down the different types of crime in an area and compares them to national averages and to statistics from other areas that you’re considering moving to.

If an area has 50% more violent crimes than another, it’s probably a good idea to look somewhere else. If property crimes, which include burglaries in which the home is empty, are higher than normal, that’s a good reason to avoid an area.

Check Out the Area

While you cannot find a home in an area where there’s absolutely no crime, there are some factors that you can look for that will help.

Simply drive by the property in the evening and take note of how many street lights there are. Look around the community and see if there are people outside, especially later in the evening.

Studies indicate that well-lit areas and areas where there is a lot of activity are less prone to illegal activity.

Neighborhood Watch

You can also do some research to see if there is a neighborhood watch in the area. Something as simple as a structured group of citizens who walk around and watch the neighborhood can serve as a great deterrent to criminals.

Finding a safe neighborhood is crucial.

Remember, it doesn’t matter how beautiful the home is or how many of your requirements it meets if you cannot safely live in it. Starting with a careful evaluation of the safety of the community is a must when you’re looking for a new home.

Proximity to Necessary Services

Some people prefer the idea of living miles away from the closest grocery store. Some people like the idea of not having a neighbor anywhere close to their property.

Ultimately, you’ll need to decide how to strike the balance between convenience and privacy when choosing a neighborhood.

Do you want your weekly trips to the grocery store to involve a 30-minute commute each way?

If so, you can probably find some properties that allow you to live outside of the nearest city. If you’re looking for a large piece of property where you won’t have neighbors close by, that’s your decision to make. However, there are some potential drawbacks to this approach that you’ll need to consider.

When you’re shopping for homeowner’s insurance, one of the first things that companies consider when quoting you a price is how closely positioned the property is to emergency services such as fire departments and police stations.

Not only does this impact how much you spend on insurance, but being far away from the nearest police station, fire department, or ambulance service impacts your safety. Spend some time considering how much convenience matters to you and choose a neighborhood accordingly.

Proximity to Work

In addition to considering how close the neighborhood is to essential services, you’ll also want to factor in how close it is to your place of employment.

In 2024, remote work is incredibly popular, so this may not be something that you need to think of when buying a home, but whether you work in an office full-time, or you have a hybrid schedule, thinking about your morning commute is crucial.

When choosing where to live, it’s a good idea to try some practice runs. If you have a day off work, consider driving from the neighborhood to your workplace on a weekday morning. This will give you some insight into the traffic patterns that you’ll be dealing with should you choose that area.

According to studies, the average American worker drives a little more than 26 minutes to work. This means that most people spend 52 minutes each day driving to and from work.

However, there are millions of people around the nation who walk, ride bikes, or use public transportation to get to work. If you don’t have a vehicle, you’ll need to consider how you’re going to get to work before settling on a particular neighborhood.

Lifestyle and Atmosphere

How engaged do you want to be with your neighbors? Do you like the idea of living in a neighborhood where they host block parties and the residents of the area do things together, or do you prefer a more secluded lifestyle where you do things in private?

Be honest with yourself about your attitude and personal goals. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live a private life, but if you move into a community where neighbors routinely spend time on each other’s porch, you may find yourself feeling pressured to fit in.

Also, you’ll need to consider if you have children or plan on having them soon. If you have kids, are there other children in the community? If there are, are they close to your child’s age?

Finally, you’ll need to think about the things that you want to do while you’re home. Do you like the idea of hosting weekend parties with close friends?

If so, you may want to look for a home that’s not too close to the neighbors so you don’t have to deal with people complaining about the noise. You should also think about how many people you plan on hosting for parties, holidays, and other events since parking is an issue in some neighborhoods.

Market Conditions

Finally, spend some time working with a realtor or researching the market conditions of the neighborhood on your own.

Market conditions include everything from how fast homes sell when put on the market to how much properties are worth. The valuation of a home takes many of the factors that we’ve already discussed into consideration.

Do homes go back on the market shortly after they’ve been bought?

If so, there may be some issues in the area that you don’t want to deal with. Are home values in the neighborhood trending downward? If so, there’s probably a reason.

Market conditions also include the overall affordability of a property. While the affordability starts with the price that you’ll pay for the property, that’s not where it ends.

Homeowner’s insurance, HOA fees, and other factors all come into play when determining how affordable a community is, so you should be sure to think of these “hidden” costs of owning a home, too.

Welcome to the Neighborhood!

Choosing where to live is one of the most important decisions that you’ll ever make.

In most cases, people use a 30-year mortgage to purchase a home, which means you may be committing to a particular spot on the map for the next three decades of your life.

Considering these factors can help you ensure that you’re choosing the right spot for you and your loved ones.