by Roberta Murphy
One of the more interesting sites to follow this past year has been Neighboroo.
In fact, we now recommend it to both local and relocating San Diego area real estate clients when they begin the process of searching for homes. Though still in beta format, Neighboroo is amazingly rich in the type of information home buyers are seeking.
- Local housing market
- Average prices
- Neighborhood and community safety
- School performance
- Cost of living
- Apartment rents
- Climate (San Diego shines!)
- Air and water quality
- Physicians per capita
- Population age and ethnicity
- And more recent additions: Foreclosures and Collateral Risks
Despite wide-ranging and mostly negative news reports on the real estate market, it is important to remember that real estate is local. Most of us live in neighborhoods and work in cities (figuratively speaking) and are seriously interested in those factors which affect the quality of our lives. Information such as what Neighboroo provides is more important than any real estate news report, because it can genuinely affect our real estate choices and the way we live our lives.
Neighboroos maps and color coding make it easy to see what is happening on a number of levels within communities and neighborhoods. Unlike Trulia, Zillow and other real estate sites, Neighboroo does not list individual properties for sale or provide any valuation model. Its focus is on community data.
What it does it does well: It tells us much about the communities in which we live or which we might be considering as a future home. It is a site worthy of bookmarking and recommendation.
