There are some pretty cool (and fun) tools to explore neighborhoods. Regardless if you plan to move there and buy, or rent, or maybe you’re just curious about what’s there. In part one, we’ll look at a couple of sites from my toolbox that I find invaluable for quick research and use all the time to get info about the character and amenities of a neighborhood I’m looking at.

I chose Stadium High School in Tacoma, Washington as my target. I don’t think it’s for sale and you can’t live there. But you just never know, Queen Anne High in Seattle was sold and converted to a condominium! Anyway, I didn’t want to cause anyone, including myself, any grief by choosing someone’s home address as a target, so we’ll use the school address to get us into the neighborhood for this particular experiment.

Stadium High School: 111 North E Street Tacoma, WA 98403-2630 (Google Maps)…

One of my favorites is walkscore.com. With this nifty little app you can simply input an address to find what amenities are in the neighborhood. They’re plotted out on a map and the site gives you a score determined on the number of retail stores, schools, libraries, restaurants, etc. that are within walking distance. When I look at homes for sale online, this is a great way to explore what’s close by.

If you want to live in a neighborhood where you can walk to the grocery store, grab a bite to eat, get a haircut, a good cup of coffee, or a local beer without driving, look here. Walkscore.com like any app of this type isn’t 100% accurate. It’s simply not possible. There’s too much frequently changing data to keep up with. Depending on the area, you’ll also find the quality of statistics can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, but the metro areas, especially in-city work best. The Stadium District is ideal for this study.

If you’re curious about a place that shows up on the Walkscore map and you’d like to know more about it, for example there’s a little bar in the Stadium District named the Parkway Tavern, check it out on Yelp.com. Yelp is an online business directory written by the people for the people. If you want to know what the regular folk who’ve been there think, this is the place.

Another key factor about neighborhood value is the rental rates. You may want to move into the neighborhood of your desire and rent first so you can study it for a while to find your perfect location within. I like Zilpy.com for this. Click the link then add property type and number of bedrooms. Remember when you use online search, less is more. Don’t filter too much so you can see what’s there. You can always go back to refine your search parameters.

Hotpads.com is similar. Here you can search for rentals, sales, foreclosures, and compare rent to purchase price values. Taking the same neighborhood, here’s Stadium rentals and Stadium for sale.

These are just a few tools, a few favorites. I think with a little experimentation you’ll find you can learn a lot about the neighborhood you want to live in and hopefully this kind of research will help you articulate the questions you’ll want to ask the prospective real estate professional you choose to represent you.

Happy Hunting…