Make wishtv.com your home page

Best Ways to Find your Next Neighborhood

New tech tools make finding a neighborhood that’s a good fit for you and your family easier than ever. Combine innovation, with good old-fashioned research and soul searching, and you will know what’s right for you. There’s an emotional connection we make when something feels just right. Using a checklist and online tools and mobile apps can help you consult your head as well as your heart when searching for your new neighborhood, so you can truly make the best choice!

Brian Mayo, Digital Director, F.C. Tucker Co. shares the “best” ways to find your next neighborhood:

  1. Make a list of needs vs. wants

We all want to lead with our hearts when selecting a new neighborhood, but a wise decision can be made only when it’s also based on data. Decide in advance what you really need versus what you may desire, and make a checklist of those items. If you have children, for example, you may need to consider the school district’s graduation rates and sports programs. Frequent travelers may need quick access to the nearest airport. Or, the most important factor may be the length of your daily commute and the availability of public transportation. Decide what matters most, write it down, and use this checklist to make an educated choice about your future neighborhood.

  1. Use local brokerage apps over national portals

When searching for a home, stick with local real estate brokerage websites. National sites and online portals are often incomplete or out-of-date, with some markets missing as many as 15 percent of the listings available. With many homes pending the same day they are being listed, having up-to-the minute information on new listings and price drops could easily be the difference in finding your dream home or not. Sites like TalkToTucker.com receive updates every 15 minutes from the source, whereas some of the national portals rely on aggregating listings from numerous places to show what is available. Also, with local real estate apps, you can get information like real-time stats and historical data, as well as neighborhood boundaries and photos. 

  1. If there is a Home Owners association, know what you are agreeing to

You’ve always wanted to paint your mailbox barn red, but then you discover all mailboxes in your neighborhood must be uniformly black. Or maybe you are planning on a mini-barn to keep the garage clutter-free, but you find out they are forbidden in the covenants. Even though covenants, conditions, and restrictions can ultimately help protect your home’s value, you’ll want to know what all is included in that fee, and what is not allowed. Your trusted agent can secure a copy of the HOA docs to review in advance, as well as confirm the fees listed are up-to-date. 

Check out more neighborhood search tips at www.talktotucker.com/talk.

SEGMENT IS SPONSORED BY FC TUCKER