Many years ago a woman was buying a house on my parent's street. She went knocking on doors to get a feedback from those that lived there. Since the street is mixed singles and doubles, she really wanted to know if there were problems.

I sincerely doubt I'd rely on zillow for anything, much less for choosing a neighborhood.

Soooooo.... you would not buy a house if there were a synagogue nearby?

Depending on the level of spiritualness, a house within walking distance to a synagogue is more valuable. It depends on whether or not someone of the Jewish faith wants to live within an eruv.

It depends on whether or not someone of the Jewish faith wants to live within an eruv.

Or if, not being Orthodox, they'd simply rather not have to get out the car every Sabbath.

It's sort of funny that they'd be barred from telling you where the nearest synagogue or church is, if you asked them. You ask them, where's the closest grocery store, closest park, closest school, but they can't tell you where the closest synagogue is? That's a fact, and if you ASK for it, why would they be discriminating if they answered it?

(some people don't want to live particularly close to any house of worship, bcs of parking situations, but a drive around ought to help tell them whether one is near them. And of course, you can probably find out where the nearest synagogue is from some other source.)

(And if you lived within an eruv, wouldn't one of your big possible markets be similarly orthodox Jews, and therefore wouldn't you want to advertise your location? sort of like advertising a school district. Of course if you did, you'd lose all those Jew-hating potential buyers, but that would not necessarily be a bad thing...)

>>Soooooo.... you would not buy a house if there were a synagogue nearby?

Were you referring to this part of the quote - "Unfortunately the Fair Housing Act bars realtors from telling buyers whether a neighborhood is gay-friendly, the location of the nearest synagogue..."

I think what the quote is saying is that the Fair Housing Act was supposed to prevent 'steering', but has resulted in gagging REAs from giving information that many buyers would like to have. Lots of people want to know where the synagogue is so they can live within walking distance. But the Fair Housing Act doesn't make a distinction. It's supposed to prevent people from distinct racial/religious backgrounds from being steered to or away from different neighborhoods.

My mother was an agent for many years and she said they all used to get 'testing' calls. Sometimes they were from the state enforcement people, sometimes from civil rights groups. So when people called her and asked to be shown houses near the Korean church, she'd suggest they contact the Chamber of Commerce or the town tourist office to get an overview of the whole city.

"Soooooo.... you would not buy a house if there were a synagogue nearby?"

I have no problem buying a house near a synagogue (or any other place of worship). Just so long as they don't ring the bells too early in the morning!

We've rarely been "in-state" when we've purchased our homes. The homes/neighborhoods that have worked the best have been in areas where we had several trips to check things out. The one house that ended up not working well was a last minute situation and we really didn't have any time to visit the area. My suggestions for neighbors/neighborhood is visit the area - don't rely solely on the internet or your realtor. If the neighbors are out in their yard, go talk to them (I did this for our current house in Louisville - they were great and gave us a wonderful assessment of the neighborhood). Drive around the area and find the local houses of worship, groceries, Target, Costco, etc. My DH and I had so much fun driving around during our first trip to Louisville, looking at all the different neighborhoods and finding stores that when we moved in July, I already knew where most things were.

If you have kids in school, do your homework on-line before narrowing down possible areas. There are a ton of web sites measuring schools' success (although I'm not a big one on just looking at test scores). For our latest move, I was checking on high schools so I looked for graduation rate, # of AP classes available, etc. States typically have an on-line education department so you can find out a lot of info from them.

Another valuable tool we found was asking future colleagues for their suggestions. So we asked them about places to live, easiest way to get into work, doctors, dentists, etc.

How to research neighborhoods:
1. Look up US Census Data.
2. Call the local police department and ask for crime statistics for the street or zip code you're interested in.
3. Drive around with your eyes open during daytime hours.
4. Get local newspapers and read about the issues.
5. Get out of your car and talk to people on the streets you'd consider living on.
6. If you can't drive around to find the stores etc, use the store locater on the store's website.

We live in a gay friendly town with synagogues, oriental, catholic, lutheran, baptist, christian etc churches; we are integrated; we live 6 blocks from a horrible neighborhood in terms of crime; we have awesome neighbors in all shapes and sizes - only 1 bigot; public schools are highly ranked but there are private schools, too; we can walk for minimal groceries and the big food stores are 1-2 miles away; Target is 2 miles away. We figured all of that out, except about the bigot, before we put in our offer.

Am I so old that I'm of the generation that was taught how to research and can actually still do it? There are loads of ways to check out neighborhoods and neighbors - can anyone think of other creative ways?

If possible, drive thru the area at different times--if you have time-- nights, weekends, around sporting events (like local sports), holidays, and go to open houses in the area.

All I care about in a neighborhood is how safe it is, and how well-kept everyone keeps their yards. We aren't the neatest house on the block but we don't park our cars on the front lawn, either. I guess housing prices appreciating are something to look for, but I definately WANT to live in a neighborhood with a diverse population, religion-wise (and that includes atheists!), ethnic-wise and sexual-orientation-wise.

Kec01, where do you live? sounds great.

I'm a realtor and I once showed a four unit in a sketchy neighborhood- I walked my clients over to some folks on the street and introduced them. My buyers asked all the questions- the neighbors informed us that the vacant building was currently filled with squaters selling crack and that the police were there all the time.

i like checking it out at different times on different days. I once had a client who took that advice and parked her car and walked the neighborhood- she heard the neighbors of the house they were interested in engaged in a domestic dispute while their dog barked nonstop followed by the sellers of the house she was interested in screaming---shut that bleeping dog up........enough said...who knew it seemed like such a nice little street....