One of the things I recommend Buyers do when considering an offer on a home, or that they do as part of their due diligence, is make contact with the surrounding neighbors.
For one thing, they will tell you all kinds of things about the home, the neighborhood and the sellers. But it also gives you a chance to decide whether or not having them as neighbors might be enough to reconsider the purchase.
Here is a link to an article I contributed to in the Chicago Tribune on this subject:
http://tinyurl.com/talktotheneighbors
This is good advice in any economy.
If you have questions about how, when and why we advise this, feel free to ask!
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This is really awesome advice. So much can be avoided that way.
Great advice and I have also been telling buyers to talk to the neighbors. If there is any problem with the property or the neighborhood, the will certainly know.
Neighbors can certainly scare off prospective buyers, but they can also confirm their decisions too. Recently, I had a neighbor across the street come over while the buyers were viewing the house and he was extremely upset because someone had parked in front of his mailbox. Who wants to move next to a difficult, over reactive person? On the other hand, every neighborhood probably has them.
This is always good advice! That was a good article you linked to.
Neighbors are a great source of information and will often tell you far more than you even want to know. We are fortunate that the neighbors we talked to before buying our home became our very good friends too.
Ben, great advice to pass along to our buyers - it is something I personally would do before moving into a neighborhood - neighbors can tell you things that you will not find on a market analysis report. I love working with buyers - not sure if I have the guts to do it 'exclusively' the way you do, always afraid of losing business - how is that niche working for you?