5 Tips for Choosing a San Diego Neighborhood

Sometimes posts are created based on questions that pop up on the field.  Lately, being the end of the year, buyers are shopping around more, so they’re a little more inquisitive about what to buy and where.

Here are some tips to think about when shopping:

1.  How’s the pocketbook?

It’s often easy to figure that the price of the home is $20.00 less per month on the mortgage than another one might be, however in an area like San Diego real estate, you’ll also see that the further away from the coast you go, the cheaper the home.  It really depends, your choice sometimes is spend $20.00 less on the mortgage but $80.00 more on gas.  Take everything into consideration!

2.  What time is it?
A neighborhood can look great during the day while everyone is at work, make sure that you have a look at the neighborhood at various times of the day.  Is there traffic at rush hour?  Do the neighbors live there just so that they can go bar hopping?  You buy the neighborhood as well as the house, so may as well get a good perspective on what that is.

3.  Ask questions
Touch bases with the locals and see if they like living in the neighborhood.  They’ll offer their opinions of neighborhood safety, noise, school performance, commuting times,etc.  Remember that there is always going to be a sour grape in the bunch, do not get hung up on one person that may be down on the area, talk to a few people.

4.  Check out the neighborhood online
There are lots of online resources, a few that you can have a look at are: San Diego crime stats or San Diego demographics

5.   Some neighborhood characteristics can be hard to cram into categories!
This site has taken 65 “quality of life” characteristics and set them up as criteria for neighborhood-hunters.

You can search “trendy” neighborhoods or “clean” ones.  Liberals or conservatives, be near public transit or nightlife…San Diego is in the works for one of the cities to cover.