Moving or Buying Land? Gleaning Information about the Neighbourhood

Okay, here's a thought exercise. Say you need to move for work. Or you've found a really promising property.

One of the unknowns about moving into a neighbourhood is ... what kind of neighbours are you going to have? Not just close by, but what kind of neighbourhood is it broadly -- personal safety, scary psycho people, theft, openness to outsiders (you), etc.?

What sources of information, unofficial, official, and quirky would you draw on to get a better picture of what you're jumping into?

I find that one unofficial-and-quirky telltale source is the local thrift shop(s).

I rummage through thrift shops all the time, on general principle and for entertainment, and they tell me a lot. Naturally, it speaks to the general affluence of the populace -- donating good quality stuff tells a story.  

But a key indicator for me is how they sell kitchen knives.

15-30 minutes south of me, all these big knives are in open bins for anyone to rummage through, and carry around in the store.

20 minutes north, the charity thrift shop refuses to sell kitchen knives at all. When I asked why, I was told they had repeated problems and were concerned about staff safety. Tells a story about the 'hood, doesn't it? I find it's valid in other places, now that I'm paying attention.

I don’t know…

We were leery about moving into our new place because the house across the street looked “sketchy”. But the other houses were freshly boughten and it seemed people would be upgrading and not letting places degrade. We even locked the house as the people across the street had cars coming and going all the time: obviously a crack house.

We had it all wrong!

They are workaholics like me and work at the local mill and thus work 80-90 hours per week. Some in the house work days and others at night. They don’t even drink. But the best part was, as we cleaned up our house, they felt obligated to clean up theirs. It’s a real resurgence here and people are noticing.

The point is: you can’t control your neighbors. The best neighbor ever can sell tomorrow and replaced with a neighbor from hell. Or it goes the other way. Yes, there is something to be said for making a sound judgement on an area, but best to make a purchase on what YOU are buying and not what others are like around you.

With new amendment rights, we as Permies have the Right to Farm Act, and the Right to Produce Food Act. These are constitutional rights we have that our neighbors can not deny us of no matter if they agree with our practices or not. Instead of worrying…. dream, plan and execute. It is much better than living in fear.

The thing I wish I had known was that otherwise nice neighbors think it's cool to drive 4-wheelers and snowmobiles at full throttle past our house at all hours. We've been woken up around 10, 12, 2, and 4.

Walk the neighborhood and look carefully for sketchy stuff.  Hopefully you'll meet other walkers and be able to chat.

Try to hang out near the house for a while to hopefully catch the annoying dirt bike noise.

If there's a local bar, have a beer and see if you can meet people and learn about the area.

Maybe you could visit the cop shop and see if they'll tell you anything.  Not sure if they legally can?

Visit at night, all night, from late afternoon until well after sunrise, and more than one night, through the week and weekends.

This is an interesting question, partly because everyone is looking for different information when looking to relocate. For some, seeing a lot of kid's toys and basketball hoops and bikes in a neighborhood is a plus and for some it is a negative. Same for proximity to commute routes, "conveniences" etc. So it is interesting to see what people are honing in on in this discussion.

I suppose everyone cares about crime, but figuring out what kind of crime and how often it is happening is the realistic question. I look at the police blotter in a town I visit regularly, an affluent suburb which seems to have a lot of car thefts and security alarms, maybe because its residents are away at work most of the time. Along the lines of the kitchen knives observation, I have noticed that within my area, there are two chain pharmacies (same chain) and in one, there are a lot of items behind locked plexi and the other has them more accessible. Possible data point for more pilfering in one area? It makes an impression.

The one place I probably get most of my "feel" for a place is the grocery store. How is it maintained, what is the general demeanor of the staff, and what do they stock. There is also a bit of noticing how my own presence is regarded, how noticeable I am in that context. This tells me a lot about the spread of community the store serves, the working conditions for lower wage workers, and something of the investment or pride in the community.

The second thing I notice is what I'll call "noise vectors" - proximity to a fire house or train crossing, flight path for an airport, neighbors with a garage for working on vehicles (revving an engine until 1AM is going to be happening all the time in my experience) or a pool and "outdoor entertainment area" close to the property line.

All of these impressions go into the gumbo. hopefully you have time to decide at a reasonable pace anyway and can take the time to get comfortable with a decision. But it is one of the scarier aspects of moving because while it's not a blind leap exactly, it's hard to really "know" a place until you've spent some real time there.

Some ideas to check a place out before physically visiting:
* Google Earth for the top-down picture and general lay of the land (junk lying around the neighborhood and industry in the area (industrial ag, oil/gas wells, etc)
* Google Street View to "drive around" the neighborhood and get a bit of a feel for the place
* local area newspapers - are the crimes they are reporting stabbings or somebody's cow getting loose?

Hi Mike,

Great point about the cop shop.  If you can get a talkative cop at the local diner, there is a great deal of information that can be gained. The information does not have to be specific to be valuable.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I rummage through thrift shops all the time, on general principle and for entertainment, and they tell me a lot. Naturally, it speaks to the general affluence of the populace -- donating good quality stuff tells a story.  

That is a good idea. As well as Mercy's idea about checking the local grocery store. Just note that Goodwill moves their merchandise around. They will put it on the floor at the store where it was donated. If it doesn't sell there, they will move it to another store. Up to several hours away. If that doesn't work, they send it to their outlet where stuff is sold by the pound. So my point is that Goodwill can be less helpful for these purposes than a truly local thrift shop.

Mark Reed wrote:Visit at night, all night, from late afternoon until well after sunrise, and more than one night, through the week and weekends.  

That's a good idea, but could be fraught with problems. I suppose you would learn what the neighbors do if they see an unknown person hanging around their neighbors house. Do they come over and talk to you? Do they call the cops? Or do they do nothing at all? If they didn't know I was coming, I would definitely prefer the first response. Probably best to make sure they are expecting you.

This doesn't work for a huge number of people and circumstances, but if you could -- rent the place for a year with an option to buy it. That would give you a great sense of what's going on. But if you decide to bail, it's more of a setback, time-wise.