When you’re researching houses to buy or rent in Grand Rapids, you need more than the basics. Knowing the beds, baths, and square footage of a house just isn’t enough! You need to learn about the neighborhood, the crime rate, the schools, and nearby house values.
But how do you find that information quickly and easily? As it turns out, you can navigate many free-to-use websites to find the important data. How can you quickly find what you need to know in Grand Rapids neighborhoods? Let’s dive in.
1. Neighborhood Crime
If you’re not familiar with a particular neighborhood, it can be tough to gauge how safe the streets are. Your best bet is to drive the area, visit local businesses, and ask the people that live there. However, if you’re searching a lot of areas and houses, having quick access to crime data is a nice luxury.
Our advice? Use Trulia.com. Search in your target city, and pick any house in your target area. On the property detail page, about halfway down, you’ll see a section called ‘See businesses, schools, and crimes near this home.’ Click on the option to ‘See reported crimes within a mile of this home.’
This will allow you to quickly review the number (and types) of crimes in the area. It’s even color coded, so you can get a quick overview. While most areas are pretty safe, a few are a relative hotbed of break-ins and assaults. This information is kept up to date, so you’ll be able to see data from the last few weeks.
2. School Systems
Many people operate on a ‘general feel’ for school districts. Perhaps they remember the quality of different districts from when they were teenagers, or they just guess!
However, schools can change quickly. Different administrations, funding fluctuations, and other factors can drastically affect the quality of education. So how can you get relevant information?
A quick and easy place to look is GreatSchools.org. It allows you to search by city, address, or district, and provides several key pieces of information. You can see the school’s overall state rating (based on the state’s color system), demographics, standardized test results, and more.
If you would like a more in-depth analysis, visit MISchoolData.org. This site isn’t quite as easy to navigate, but it has a lot of information if you want to dig into details.
3. House Values
As you’re looking for a house to buy or rent in Grand Rapids, it can be very valuable to know the value of surrounding homes. This can help provide a good comparison of rental rates vs. mortgage payments, and prevent you from overpaying on a property.
Realtor.com can be a valuable source for this information. From the main page, you can select homes for sale, rent, recently sold, or all homes. Once you select a property, scroll waaaay down on the page. At the bottom, you’ll see a section called ‘Properties Near (Your Property).‘ Click on the ‘Recently Sold‘ tab, and you’ll see accurate data on recently sold houses.
You will only get a basic overview of sale price, date, beds, baths, and square feet, but it’s a good start. For a detailed analysis for comparable homes, we recommend working with a quality Realtor.
So dig in with your new tools, and find out what you need to know!