December 2013 Blogs

4 Questions To Surface the Best Neighborhood for You:

I’m a bit of a logistics nerd when it comes to planning my days, even on the weekends. I try to pack my days to the gills with the projects and people I love, so I need things to run like clockwork, frictionlessly. I’m also a creature of habit, and pride myself on finding and working with the best local merchants.

So, it’s fortunate for me that I live in a neighborhood that is all about the call-ahead. My favorite brunch spot has an hour-long wait - unless you call ahead (FYI: day-of calls only, no reservations in advance, ask for Sam). Same with my nail lady and my tire guy.

They’re the best in town, so they’re very oversubscribed, but they give me VIP treatment because I’ve struck upon the VIP formula: long-time repeat business and calling ahead.

But I didn’t really know this when I moved here - it just so happened to work out that my neighborhood and I are a perfect match. (Don’t even get me started about the regional park down the street, where the rangers take - and post! - almost as many pictures of my pugs as I do.) Of course, this is my third home, and the neighborhoods I landed in on my first two tries were decidedly less well-matched to my lifestyle. They weren’t bad neighborhoods, by any means. Just nowhere near as delightful on a daily basis as my current digs.

When we house hunt, we spend so much time worrying about the basics, like home style, pricing and school district scores, that we don’t always notice the nuances that can differentiate a match made in heaven from something that’s decidedly more meh. If you’re in the process of vetting neighborhoods and want to optimize the match, here are 4 questions to ask yourself, your agent and your prospective neighbors:

1.  Sell your home on the range.  I’m not suggesting that you need to be every-weekend running buddies with your new BFF next door. But if you run into the neighbors while you’re viewing a property, this can be a very revealing question to ask. It’ll help you get a feel for the general connectedness of people in the area. If no one you ask knows what anyone else likes to do, it might be the sort of place where people keep to themselves, which might or might not jive with the sort of lifestyle you’re hoping to build.

Even if people have very different interests, neighbors who talk to each other will know a little bit about each others’ interests. For example, I don’t spend a ton of time with my next door neighbors, and we are very different in age, ethnicity and household composition. But they know I go to yoga, dance a lot and walk my dogs on the regular. And I know they are active in their kids’ schools, run a catering side-business and have delightful-smelling extended family barbecues lots of weekends in the summertime.

If you ask even a few people in the area this question, you might even uncover hidden treasures within a short walk or drive from the property which would have taken you months or even years after closing to find on your own. Maybe there’s a little pocket park on the next street over, a Master’s swim club that meets early AMs at the neighborhood high school, a Baby Boot Camp that meets at a neighbor’s house or a series of cooking classes that meets in the back of the tiny grocery store on the corner. I’ve known buyers-to-be who found everything from their future photography buddies to their future deck-builders simply by getting friendly and chatty with their future neighbors while they were visiting and viewing a home.

2.  What do you want your [your family’s] ecosystem to look and feel like?  Get real with yourself about what you even want out of your neighborhood. I find it useful to think of your family or household as a living, multi-member, dynamic and ever-changing organism that will thrive in the right ecosystem.

That “right ecosystem” is your neighborhood.

If you are a busy career professional buying a home in a bedroom community of the urban area to which you commute, your biggest priorities might be convenience to the freeway, quiet, low-crime rates and neighbors who have just as much pride of ownership in their homes as you do. If you crave to be able to have your kids walk to school, walk to their extracurricular lessons and walk to their play dates with other kids who walk to the same school, that information will give you and your agent a great deal of direction to the neighborhoods that could be the right ecosystem for you - and a great deal of course-correction away from those that could never fit the bill.

Whether you see your just-right ecosystem as one that will allow you to keep bees and goats in the backyard or one that will allow you to hail a cab or get to the subway at any time of day or night, this question can help you get an actionable vision in place for finding the just-right neighborhood.

3.  What do I need to know about this neighborhood that I’m not asking? What is not obvious?  If you’re working with an agent who has experience in a neighborhood, they’re probably really good at breaking down the standard selling points about the area: great schools, great views, great local shops - that sort of thing. But when you’ve heard that basic briefing and you’re done getting your specific questions answered, I recommend that you ask your agent this open-ended question.

Throughout the course of your house hunt, your agent will get to know your personality and will get a feel for whether the flavor of person you are is a good fit with the flavor of the neighborhood. So asking them this open-ended question gives them a great opportunity to fill in the blanks in your understanding of the neighborhood based on what they know about both you and the neighborhood.

If your agent has a particularly long history working in that part of town, this question can also sometime serve as the little prompt that reminds them to give you deeper, more nuanced information than you might not get otherwise, like:

    sharing the colorful commentary about the past and present history and residents of the neighborhood

    connecting you with former clients who live there, and even

    telling you a deeper history of the home values in the neighborhood than might be evident from the comps, with the context of various homes they’ve worked with in the area over years and years.

4.  Are there any common issues you frequently see with homes in this area?   Inspectors know so much more information than they can ever put on a page, some of it comforting and some not. One thing they often know is how the geography, topography, soils, climate and environmental factors tend to impact homes in an area or even on a street over time.

For example, my town’s soils tend to be clay, not rock, and because clay expands and contracts with the weather, homes tend to get little settlement cracks and fall out of plumb over time. Up the hill from here, many of the homes have bridge driveways that span the gap from the hill to the home, and those need to be replaced every 20 or 30 years. And just up the street, homes tend to be very different and have different issues as they are mostly new construction that was built after a major fire a decade ago - compared with the 50 year old average age of homes at the bottom of the street.

Of course, by the time the average buyer talks to a home inspector, they’ve already tentatively settled on a neighborhood match. But occasionally, an inspector’s answers to this question can help you feel great about your choice. And on other, more rare occasions, their answers can help you get the right bids and improve your property preventively to avoid the area-specific issues that have caused nearby home owners to regret their choice of neighborhood.




CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO THE HOME PAGE

MLSLincolnWestonRealty

BUYING ADVANTAGES

  • Approximately 45,000 Mass. Listings!
  • Prompt Online Showing Requests
  • Most Professional Buyer Representation
  • Top-Notch Agents to Serve You
  • Over 30 Years Experience
  • Easy Click for Showing
  • Virtual Drive Around the Neighborhood
  • Spectacular Map Search
  • View All Property Listing Specs!

MLSLincolnWestonRealty

SELLING ADVANTAGES

  • Professional, Experienced Sales Force!
  • World-Wide, On-Line Exposure
  • Expert Real Estate Resources
  • Unmatched Property Valuation Methods
  • Specialized High-End Property Services
  • NO FEES unless we are successful
  • State-of-the-Art Marketing Strategies
  • We have the Most Important Selling Tips
  • We Respect your needs: Timing and Price

FEATURED INFORMATION

MLSLincolnWestonRealty BLOGS Provide the Best Real Estate Information & Advice Anywhere!

Homes for Sale In Lincoln MA

With previous property ownership and devel- opment experience in Lincoln, Mass., MLSLincolnWestonRealty possesses the direct knowledge and skills to help you thoroughly understand the real estate climate in Lincoln, MA, make the right decisions, and buy or sell a home with confidence. Our buyer or seller representation is unsurpassed anywhere in the State. With a limited inven- tory of homes for sale in Lincoln, MA, you need the best advice possible. Please contact us during our extended hours of 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. seven days a week.

Boston and Vicinity

Whether it's homes for sale in Lincoln, Mass., homes for sale Weston, Mass. or anywhere else in the Boston, Massachusetts area, MLSLincolnWestonRealty is devoted to being the best real estate brokerage firm anywhere in Massachusetts. Our techno- logical sophistication and innovations, over forty years experience in sales, property management, development, renting and leas- ing in both residential and commercial/ industrial real estate are just some of the reasons you simply must give us a try. You'll be very glad you did!  CALL US TODAY!

Homes for Sale In Weston MA

In this dynamic and exclusive market MLSLincolnWestonRealty offers the most powerful tools, professional service and invaluable expertise to find the right home for you if you are shopping for houses for sale in Weston, MA. Our extensive experience within the Weston, Mass. real estate market makes us the best choice for marketing your house for sale in Weston, Massachusetts Our extended hours and passion for our work are only some of the reasons we will do a better job for you than any other real estate broker out there.

Scope of Services

MLSLincolnWestonRealty provides expert real estate and relocation services for residential real estate, single-family homes, high-end luxury homes, condominiums, multi-family homes, rental properties, mobile homes, commercial/industrial real estate, land, business opportunities, and much more with special emphasis in Weston, Lincoln, Brookline, Newton, Wellesley, Lexington, Wayland, Sudbury, Concord, Cambridge, Boston, Belmont, Sherborn, Dover, Needham, Lynnfield, Marblehead, Hopkinton, Holliston, Hyannis, Falmouth, Cape Cod, Cape Ann, Metro West, North Shore, South Shore and all other surrounding greater Boston and Massachusetts communities. MLSLincolnWestonRealty can also assist buyers and sellers with their specific real estate needs throughout the entire State of Massachusetts. We are the premier luxury residential real estate brokerage firm.

With an Exclusive Buyer Agency relationship, MLSLincolnWestonRealty provides our loyal and dedicated home buyers with the absolute best tools, resources, services, skills and expertise to provide them with tremendous savings and great satisfaction with their real estate purchases. Finding the right home and making the right home purchase are not always easy, but with MLSLincolnWestonRealty at your side every step of the way your chances of success with buying the right home in Massachusetts will increase exponentially.

As a highly skilled listing real estate agency, MLSLincolnWestonRealty provides our home sellers and other clientele with unparalleled knowledge, marketing programs and hard work to succeed with the sale of real estate in Massachusetts. This turn-key real estate power-house will enable you, the seller, to obtain a premium market price for the sale of your real property in the least time possible.
OUR SERVICES INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING TOPICS and AREAS: Homes for sale in Lincoln MASS., Homes for sale in Weston MASS., Weston MASS. Homes for Sale, Lincoln MASS. Homes for Sale, Boston Mass. Homes for Sale, Weston MASS. Real Estate, Lincoln MASS. real estate, Boston Mass. Real Estate, Massachusetts real estate listings, Massachusetts Real Estate Agent, Boston, Mass. Real Estate, MLSLincolnWestonRealty, MLS, Lincoln MASS., Concord MASS., open houses, school and community info, agents, offices, realtors, MLS listings, properties, home search, residential, land, adult community, mortgage, pre-approval, interest rates, relocation, moving, MA, Online Home Search, Find Homes Online, Mass Real Estate, Boston Homes, Cambridge, Mass. Real Estate, Massachusetts Real Estate, Massachusetts Homes PETER GOTTLIEB, BROKER/AGENT
(781) 235-7727