Neighborhood Scout Relocation Tools

Find the Best Neighborhoods with Neighborhood Scout
The thing about moving cross country to a city you're not familiar with is just that…you're not familiar with it.  I don't know about you, but the thought of moving to a new neighborhood without any idea of what to expect when you get there makes me a little nervous.  Of course ideally you would be able to check you're your surroundings before you take the plunge. But, I talk to customers daily who are moving long distance and haven't found a place to live yet. In fact, it's more common that you might think.

Rather than moving blindly, there are some great online tools to help make your decision easier…one is called Neighborhood Scout, and I highly recommend checking it out.   

In a nutshell, Neighborhood Scout is a web-based tool that provides information about neighborhoods all across the U.S.  You can find realtors, movers, the highest appreciating neighborhoods, the lowest crime areas, the best school districts and a lot more.  I happen to LOVE the "Scout Labs reports", specifically the "Safest Cities" and "most dangerous cities" reports. Very helpful.

And the good news?  Many of the features found at Neighborhood Scout are available for free.  But if you want more in-depth information, you can do a paid subscription. It's a little pricy at $39.99 for one month (or lower prices for longer subscription periods), but if a visit isn't possible and you don't know folks in the area, I think it's probably worth the spend.  

Finding a low-crime neighborhood
Who doesn't care about neighborhood safety, right? Neighborhood Scout gathers data from the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department to create reports about crime in neighborhoods across the country. So the crime rate report includes information like total number of crimes, crime rate per 1,000 residents, type of crimes committed (violent or property) and more.  Although a subscription is required to get the full report, you can get some helpful info for free.

Finding the Best Schools
Since I'm a parent with a school-age child (and one that's getting close), tools for choosing the best school are very appealing. Neighborhood Scout seems to do a great job at this.  It ranks schools based on test scores, school quality and class size.  The schools on the report are compared to the entire state, in addition to your local area. Again, you'll have to pay for the full report, but you can see test score comparisons and the district rating compared to the other state school districts and U.S. school districts.

If you know of other great resources or tools for checking out your new neighborhood when you're not able to visit in person, I would love to hear about them!