Home is where the heart is, which is why the safety of your neighborhood should remain a priority. This rule also applies to traders and agents within the real estate market. Sometimes a property seems absurdly affordable for its size or location. When a deal seems too good to be true, it is best to seek a second opinion – crime may be an underlying cause.
Determines Security Measures
The safety of your neighborhood will affect the amount of money you’re going to spend on your home security set-up. Be prepared to fork out extra fees for higher fences, to sturdier gates and even locks with biometrics.
Although pricey, it is essential to safeguard the boundaries of properties situated in neighborhoods with a high crime rate. Consider this a mandatory insurance fee for your property and the safety of occupants.
Be wary though, an overly fortified home might defeat the purpose. If your property looks like Fort Knox, chances are, you’ll be attracting the curiosity and attention of the unwanted company.
Safety of Children
Although school transportation can be easily arranged through chartered bus or carpooling services, you can never be sure of sidewalks and driveways when your child is unsupervised. Additionally, an unsafe neighborhood may be problematic for the developmental years of young children – constant exposure to crime and law enforcement may lead to bad influences and lifelong trauma.
Hospitality & General Environment
Expect more inviting pool parties, Christmas gatherings, birthday celebrations, and New Year countdowns when you’re situated in a safer neighborhood. Guests and residents will have greater peace of mind when they park their vehicles at your property or decide to leave during the darkest hours of the night.
Additionally, some taxi drivers and carpooling agents may choose to avoid high crime areas during certain times of the day. This can become quite an inconvenience if you do not own personal transportation.
Rental Woes
The location of your property will also determine the quality of your tenants. Property owners may have a hard time searching for suitable tenants if their neighborhood has a high notoriety index. As a result, owners may be forced to reduce rental fees way below average market rates, which attracts undesirable tenants such as illegal immigrants, thugs, dealers, or the occasional broke foreign student who defaults on payments.
Be extremely cautious when checking through the documents and background of potential tenants. Avoid rushing through an official agreement with the wrong crowd while you’re desperately trying to rent your place out.
Challenges in the Resale Market
A dangerous neighborhood will significantly reduce the resale value of your property regardless of how well-furnished and renovated it may be. Because let’s face it, few people are willing to risk living in a dangerous place no matter the size of the discount.
This may result in a lack of interested buyers for an extensive period of time, which can lead to gradual losses in your property value as you’re forced to spend money on property maintenance and even reparation fees for an indefinite period.
Lay of the Land
It is important to be fully aware of the safety of a neighborhood before committing to a purchase. Here are some ways to achieve this:
1) Speaking to potential neighbors – and/or surveying the condition of surrounding structures (do they look abandoned, are the windows suspiciously tinted, are there suggestions of illegal activity? You’ll be able to gather a great deal of info from conversations with nearby residents – are they friendly, shifty, inviting? This will give you a gauge of what to expect as a future occupant.
2) Consulting online sources – A quick search on the web should be able to provide you with records of the latest crimes and activities in your neighborhood. However, this might prove risky and inconclusive since most petty crimes go unreported by the media. Still, this can give you a glimpse of your neighborhood’s security standards.
3) Seeking professional advice –This means speaking to your real-estate agent and sieving through every bit of detail. If you have questions or a nagging suspicion, feel free to raise them. Any respectable agent should be able to provide you with a clear and straightforward answer regarding the safety of a neighborhood. This, however, is strongly based on a mutual policy of trust and transparency.
4) Relying on detailed data – Specialized sites like ProspectNow provide a comprehensive database of residential and commercial properties. By tapping on the extensive directory and services provided by the company, users can gain exclusive access to document-supported information in making informed property purchases.
ProspectNow is the complete property and owner database that will assist you with closing quality deals with the most reliable information.