when you are/were looking for a house, how did you do research on the area? did you just drive around? DH and i are just looking around, but i'm not sure how to get a feel for an area.
LadyDuda81509
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Re: House hunting..
i just told my real estate agent, that i wanted a nice area with a good school district somewhere around...and then i names a few towns...and he set me up with listingbook..and i basically just looked at houses that way...because only the houses with that criteria were on there so i knew they were good!
hth
do you have any towns in mind?
pandafish519
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Re: House hunting..
thanks hunny. we are TRYING to stay in the huntington area.. but there are SO many areas that are not good, and i know most of them, but for some reason i'm not sure about this particular area.
coldasice217
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Re: House hunting..
DH and I are looking pretty much in the areas surrounding both of our home towns...in other words, we're priced out of the areas lol. But we're looking primarily north shore western to west-central suffolk. A pretty wide swath. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about these areas, so if you have any questions, feel free to FM me!
ETA: From you post, I kinda think I have the town figured out that you're talking about, and if it is the same town in Huntington, you're correct about not being able to get a good feeling on it, it's sketchville south of the main drag, but north of it gets uber expensive and nice...not really a middle ground. IF I'm correct in assuming lol. I'm in that area a lot.
pandafish519
Posted:
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Re: House hunting..
Posted by coldasice217
DH and I are looking pretty much in the areas surrounding both of our home towns...in other words, we're priced out of the areas lol. But we're looking primarily north shore western to west-central suffolk. A pretty wide swath. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about these areas, so if you have any questions, feel free to FM me!
ETA: From you post, I kinda think I have the town figured out that you're talking about, and if it is the same town in Huntington, you're correct about not being able to get a good feeling on it, it's sketchville south of the main drag, but north of it gets uber expensive and nice...not really a middle ground. IF I'm correct in assuming lol. I'm in that area a lot.
you are def correct in your assumption. there are VERY specific areas that are 'nice' and they aren't in the price range we can afford. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Margarita
Posted:
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Re: House hunting..
try using greatschools.org to look up the schools in the area.... i usually went under the assumption that if the schools are good then the area is good too which is usually true.
coldasice217
Posted:
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Re: House hunting..
Posted by pandafish519
Posted by coldasice217
DH and I are looking pretty much in the areas surrounding both of our home towns...in other words, we're priced out of the areas lol. But we're looking primarily north shore western to west-central suffolk. A pretty wide swath. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about these areas, so if you have any questions, feel free to FM me!
ETA: From you post, I kinda think I have the town figured out that you're talking about, and if it is the same town in Huntington, you're correct about not being able to get a good feeling on it, it's sketchville south of the main drag, but north of it gets uber expensive and nice...not really a middle ground. IF I'm correct in assuming lol. I'm in that area a lot.
you are def correct in your assumption. there are VERY specific areas that are 'nice' and they aren't in the price range we can afford. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I know, we drove around after church once for kicks and giggles and we were like wow...we didn't realize it got so nice up north, because we drive up from the south and it's so ehh. There are some capes that are affordable just before it starts getting really north on the side streets off main st you can look at maybe.
MLAngelo
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Re: House hunting..
Look up the school 'report cards' for one. Driving around an area is important. But I tried to look at areas I knew already or knew people who liked. If I end up going to CT I am going to be doing it blind and that will be much harder.
klsnyc805
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Re: House hunting..
We are house hunting in both Westchester and LI from NYC, so when we get a chance we take a field trip to some areas we're interested in...we go to open houses to get an idea of $XXX will get you in that area. It's fun but time consuming. :( We also use Redfin.com or Zillow.com to scope out areas, and Google earth to see what's around a specific area.
Most of the houses that came on the market since we started looking in Feb are still there and prices keep dropping.....yay!
RitasEngaged
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Re: House hunting..
I ONLY LOOKED AT TOWNS THAT I KNEW WERE GOOD - I KNOW WHERE I LIVE WAS SO I KEPT MY SEARCH THERE
FOR YOU I WOULD LOOK AT SCHOOL DISTRICTS
KittyGags
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Re: House hunting..
I'm super familiar with the area (obviously, haha) so if you need help, feel free to FM me!
VickiR510
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Re: House hunting..
whatever towns u have in mind i always go into schooldatadirect.org then i usually will ask the real estate agent how the area is.
Alexandra17
Posted:
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Re: House hunting..
When we were house hunting, I did everything I thought I could. drive around looking for people and then asking them questions about it, schools, how loud the area was at night, any violence, cop cars, how were the streets (busy)
