Househunting Tips
13th May 2008
I am still two years out and I’m already looking at housing markets, walkability and some other items that interest me about a new city. Here are some things that I found that you might also find interesting:
1. Cost comparison between cities calculator - CNN has an excellent calculator that can easily be used to compare costs between two cities. It doesn’t have to compare the current city you live in - just plug one of the cities into that field if your current city is not what you’re comparing.
2. Walkability Test - I figure if a city is walkable, I can easily bike it. This is an excellent gauge for how well you’ll be able to save gas.
3. CVS Store Finder - I’m seriously addicted and couldn’t go without at this point. Here’s how to find out where the CVSes are located.
4. School Rankings for the county - each county will vary, but schools drive home prices, etc.
5. Zillow for Neighborhood Demographics - if you want to see what kind of people live in the neighborhood, you might look at zillow. It has a demographic at the lower right of each home you’re looking at.
What other web resources am I missing out on? What is important to you to look at when you’re considering moving?
May 13th, 2008 at 7:38 am
I think you identified the most important tip of all in the school rankings. My wife and I recently moved from the midwest to the southeast and our first priority in buying a house was to look at the school districts where our children will go. We did use the CNN calculator to compare the costs between the two largest cities we were moving from and to. I would say it is close but was a little low on estimating health care costs in the city that we moved to.
We also did a lot of research on the area we were moving to as far as jobs and population growth. The area we moved to is a fast growing region of the country with many good jobs which should help us retain our home value compared to where we moved from.
Best of luck to you in the future.