Which neighborhood?
March 31, 2016 7:53 AM   Subscribe

I am buying a house and trying to decide between two neighborhoods. Help me decide!

Neighborhood A is adjacent to the neighborhood I live in now. Thus, neighborhood A is closer to the things that populate my daily life now (stores, gym, coffee shops, etc.). It is also close to downtown. Most of my friends live in neighborhood A and the neighborhood I live in now.

Comparable houses in neighborhood A are about 25% more expensive than in neighborhood B. Neighborhood B is farther away from my current neighborhood and from downtown and I have only 1-2 friends in the neighborhood. There are plenty of good spots in neighborhood B (stores, coffee shops, etc.) but I would still be coming back to my old neighborhood for certain things.

My commute would be slightly better from B, but not bad from A. School districts are irrelevant. The neighborhoods are equally safe. I like both neighborhoods a lot. I rely exclusively on walking and public transportation to get around town.

I can afford the higher house price, but I’m a little concerned that prices in A are inflated and I do like the idea of spending less in B. I just don’t know if the price difference is worth the inconvenience/social disconnection that would come with moving there.

I know only I can decide whether price or location is more important to me, but my questions are: (1) are there other factors I am not thinking about? and (2) have you made a similar decision, and if so, what drove the decision and do you think you made the right choice?

Thanks!
posted by trixie119 to Home & Garden (24 answers total)
 
It sounds like you'll be able to afford a nicer house in B. Does house size? Does yard size matter to you? Does nighttime noise?

How similar are the houses in the two? Is there a style you prefer in one and not the other? Have you looked at houses in both neighborhoods?
posted by mareli at 7:59 AM on March 31, 2016


Best answer: I rent, but last year I was choosing between neighborhoods much like yours. My "A" neighborhood was more expensive, but I'd lived there for years and I was a regular at many of the shops/restaurants/salons, etc. My "B" neighborhood was cheaper, but further away and I wasn't familiar with the shops/restaurants/salons.

I chose B and it was the right choice for me. I still visit A occasionally - they have my favorite nail salon and some of my favorite shops - but I've made new favorites in B. And the money I save by living in B affords me more flexibility in my daily life.
posted by schroedingersgirl at 7:59 AM on March 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Something to consider:
Your age. Schools are not an issue because you don't and won't have kids, or don't but someday will because it hasn't happened yet? Are you young and child-free and social with a group that is going to soon become less social as their lives move forward and start to become filled with things like kids? I have many friends whom I rarely see anymore simply because we don't have kids and they do, and our lives just diverged from weekly hang outs to maybe once per year now. If I had made big decisions based on the assumption that my social circle wouldn't change, I'd be a very unhappy person now.

it sounds like you are planning to be in Neighborhood A regularly anyway, so does living in B matter that much when you think about your social circle? Are your friends also reliant on public transport and would not be willing to come to you?
posted by archimago at 8:01 AM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]


My rule of thumb: When you list all the pros/cons of a thing, the very last point you make is what you really want to do:

I just don’t know if the price difference is worth the inconvenience/social disconnection that would come with moving there.

Neighborhood A.
posted by Etrigan at 8:17 AM on March 31, 2016 [8 favorites]


Another long term consideration: given current and emerging trends, which one is the better investment?
posted by carmicha at 8:26 AM on March 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Best answer: We're having that very issue right now. Our apartment is perfectly located to everything we like to do, our friends, and our commutes.

There's one hitch. They're demolishing our pool, gym and clubhouse to build 46 townhouses at the front of the complex. So we're loosing amenities AND we'll be under construction for the foreseeable future. So we're looking at our options to see if anything rings our bell. But we're not 100% convicted about moving just yet. Keeping our options open.

My suggestion is to do a two-pronged search. Concentrate on A, look at places in A. If you find one that works for you, GREAT! If you see something fantastic in B, by all means see if its fabulocity turns your head, consider it.

The thing is, a lot of friends in neighborhood A may move, depending on what happens in their lives and relationships. So you may be the lone person in neighborhood A in a few years, as others move away for jobs, or out further into the suburbs or wherever life takes them.

Enjoy the process, and remember, don't buy based on your furniture. You furniture costs thousands of dollars, houses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:28 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


Best answer: How easy is it to get to Neighborhood A from Neighborhood B? If it's a short ride/walk, I'd vote for B. But if it's complicated to get to - say, on the other side of downtown or requires more than one train or bus, go for A.

We made a Neighborhood A/Neighborhood B (along with neighborhoods C, D, E, etc.) decision recently. Our Neighborhood B was a neighborhood we loved, and our money would have gone much, much further there, but the trip between A and B was inconveniently long, and we would have had to find new everything (not just coffee shops and grocery stores, but doctors, dentists, etc.) in B. We bought in A, and I think it was the right move for us. (In our case, there were also kid/school-related concerns and an element of luck - we put in offers on homes in Neighborhoods A, B and C, and got accepted on the A place. But if those weren't in place, I think A would have been the right move anyway.)

Trends in property values are worth considering, too. Have prices in A been steadily rising while B remains relatively flat? Is B likely to explode in popularity in the next 10-20 years?
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:37 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


Schools are an issue for resale.
posted by ElGuapo at 8:46 AM on March 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Note that the original poster said "...I’m a little concerned that prices in A are inflated...".

We bought in neighborhood A, at the end of 2007 (closed January 3rd 2008), the height of the bubble. Probably that same 25% premium (in our case, at least a hundred grand, although our house is also smaller than anything we found in neighborhood B). When the market crashed, neighborhood A lost a lot less value than neighborhood B, and recovered way quicker.

In our case, neighborhood A was just barely post-war, fairly close to Victorian era neighborhood, and is moderately walkable. Neighborhood B ends up being much more car oriented.
posted by straw at 8:52 AM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]


To reiterate/rephrase what straw just said: in a downturn, the apparently inflated neighborhoods tend to hold their value better than the reasonably-priced alternatives. Or, to put it another way, location, location, location. Neighborhood A is probably a safer investment as well as a more attractive place to live, albeit more expensive.
posted by mr vino at 9:18 AM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]


Best answer: It's pretty typical for neighborhoods closer to downtown to command higher prices than neighborhoods further out unless there are major discrepancies in school quality, crime rate, or quality of housing stock. So I don't know that the higher prices in Neighborhood A are "inflated" (meaning high for no good reason) so much as that they are just higher because those houses are more desirable to people in general.

I think the key questions are 1) how long are you planning to stay in the house? 5-7 years, or till you're too old to shovel the walk? Neighborhood A will probably have better resale value, but that becomes a lot less relevant the longer you're planning to stay in a place.

How much of a strain would the 25% premium put on your finances? If the difference is "I won't be able to go out to eat as much" that's one thing, but if it's "I won't be able to make retirement contributions" that's another.

I'd probably favor Neighborhood A on the basis of being more pleasant for you and more likely to hold value, but if you're going to have to make significant financial tradeoffs I might go with Neighborhood B.

Maybe look at houses in both areas and see what appeals to you?
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 9:31 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


When the market crashed, neighborhood A lost a lot less value than neighborhood B, and recovered way quicker.

This.

Also, school districts are never irrelevant, because they are one of the number one determining factors of price in the first place. If it's within your means, always go with a place that's in a better school district. It will keep your property value higher over the course of time that you own your property, and will fetch you a better sales price if you choose to sell in the future.

There's an intangible benefit to owning in a more expensive neighborhood, in that generally speaking people will tend to protect their investment by keeping up their own property, which further adds to the value of your property.
posted by vignettist at 9:40 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Personally, I think it's better to live near friends than near work. You'll make the effort to commute to work no matter what, but making the effort to commute to have fun is a harder sell and many people just start skipping social events if they have to travel to get there. Living near friends and activities will keep you more social, which will improve your quality of life.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 9:48 AM on March 31, 2016 [10 favorites]


Best answer: I think it's better to live near the people you want to see when you aren't at work. You HAVE to commute to work and home again, but then being close to the things you want to do make those things so much easier. We see our neighboorhood friends frequently and for short periods of time and often with little notice. Our friends that require a car ride..... they require plans and plans are harder. So limit your travel time by living close to where you want to end up.
posted by dpx.mfx at 9:50 AM on March 31, 2016


Another long term consideration: given current and emerging trends, which one is the better investment?

When the market crashed, neighborhood A lost a lot less value than neighborhood B, and recovered way quicker.

I haven't studied this, but in my informal observation, price differences tend to grow over time. (A might always be 25% more, but if prices appreciate, that 25% is a larger dollar amount.)

Of course, if you don't think prices will appreciate by at least as much as you're paying in interest, then maybe you should pick the cheaper place so you're financing less. (Then again, there are the tax benefits to consider.)
posted by salvia at 9:55 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


Other things to consider are environmental: is one area more prone to flooding? What about utilities? When we bought our house, we eliminated certain neighborhoods based on the likelihood of either flooding or wet basements. In the DC area, some places have all the power underground; others have all above-ground lines and have a pretty serious problem with losing power in bad storms. Are there similar issues in your area? Is one area slated for any sort of development? New transit, lots of condos, a new highway, etc?

My general take is that the more walkable and transit-accessible you are, the better. That sort of thing seems to be going up in value.
posted by john_snow at 10:25 AM on March 31, 2016


Response by poster: This is all very helpful so far, thanks! Much food for thought.

I'll just add two things for clarification. First, I meant that schools are irrelevant because the two neighborhoods have schools of comparable quality. Second, a lot of things about the neighborhoods are exactly the same: the lot size, the outdoor space, transit accessibility: imagine basically the exact same home, that costs $X in B, and $X + 25% in A. (Also, I set my budget before I started looking: A is in my budget but B is below. I could probably get a bigger house in B at an A price point but that would be way more space than I need, so I'm not considering that option at the moment.)
posted by trixie119 at 11:25 AM on March 31, 2016


A is in my budget
Just do it. Buy A. You know you want to.
posted by feral_goldfish at 11:29 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Yes, we made a similar decision. We chose A, because we were moving to a new place with more-or-less ready-made potential friends, and didn't want to be socially isolated. It wasn't so much that the friends lived in A as that the places we would go to hang out with friends (and do social activism) were in A.

We definitely don't regret it. We're crap at planning, and It's a lot easier to do spontaneous things living in A, like: oh hey it's that one night a month when you can hop from art opening to art opening (in our incredibly unglamorous small city). And people call us when they're downtown, and we go meet them, spur of the moment.

In our case we were renting, but wound up renting for 8 years. We've recently bought a building, in A, and plan to live there.

As Etrigan said above, it seems clear what you actually want to do. Is it possible that you are having trouble making your decision because you are imagining having trouble justifying it to someone else?
posted by feral_goldfish at 11:43 AM on March 31, 2016


Best answer: I just don’t know if the price difference is worth the inconvenience/social disconnection that would come with moving there.

This sounds like a "should" to me: you're thinking you "should" be price-conscious and choose the deal. This is a pretty common thought in our world (CAPITALISM RULES EVERYTHING AROUND ME), a complex mix of thriftiness, self-denial, and shame (I know it v v well!!). I think it usually leads down the wrong path.

To reframe it: if you buy B, what can you do with the savings? What is the actual value to you of that money, other than feeling like you got a better deal/didn't pay too much or more than you "should"?

There's nothing in your question about that, which leads me to believe you really just want A.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:01 PM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


Echoing what archimago says, with a slight twist -- as folks get married, start thinking of having kids, etc. they often move to cheaper neighborhoods to get more space. I've definitely seen quite a few of my friends make exoduses from the city centre to the 'burbs in order to buy property. If your friends are homeowners with kids already, it may be a safer bet that they'll be sticking around in neighborhood A, but if they're more like late 20s and renting -- especially if they aren't in high-earning fields -- I wouldn't count on it.
posted by phoenixy at 12:04 PM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


With so much being more or less equal, I would focus almost exclusively on the investment potential. One neighborhood costs 25% more for the same thing - this neighborhood is probably considered to be more attractive. The other, however, may be emerging and provide you with a greater growth in value.

From your description, I would lean towards A, but look for an attractive deal in either. Ask what the local experts think, look at what growth has been like in each neighborhood in the last few years.

I bought in Aug 08 in an emerging trendy neighborhood. However, I also bought below market value out of luck, and as straw and mr vino mentioned above, my neighborhood maintained and regained value much more than other neighborhoods during the recession.
posted by vunder at 1:59 PM on March 31, 2016


Check mom blogs, US DOE school demographic data and GreatSchools test data before you firmly conclude schools are "comparable" but if the neighborhoods are in the same district, take school differences with a grain of salt as attendance policies and boundaries can shift rapidly and charter schools can destabilize long established school quality hierarchies.

Ditto that real estate busts magnify, rather than compress, valuation discrepancies within the same region.
posted by MattD at 10:38 PM on March 31, 2016


Response by poster: Thanks to all of you! This has given me tremendous food for thought. For now I am going to keep looking in both neighborhoods and see if there's a particular house that makes the decision much easier. Many thanks!!
posted by trixie119 at 4:58 AM on April 1, 2016


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