Finding Good Neighborhoods

[Bryan Dumesnil]

Hello all,

I am located in south Louisiana and i am wanting to do my first flip. I find that there are way too many properties to look through and i believe I need to narrow down my search a bit. I would like to invest in a nicer neighboorhood; somewhere people want to live, that way when the flip is complete I do not have an issue selling the property. Does anyone have any advice for finding good neighborhoods in a local area short of driving through an entire city? I know my local cities pretty well but I also understand that a city can hold hidden gems that are not easy to find. For the record, I plan to only invest in the immediate cities around me for the time being. Those cities include New Iberia, Broussard, Youngsville, Patterson, Bayou Vista. Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks everyone!

[Brian Adzadi]

@Bryan Dumesnil

Although I may not live anywhere in Louisiana, a good tool to use to determine if a neighborhood is nice is the quality rating of the public school system. The website Greatschools.org rates schools from 1 to 10. 10 being the best schools and 1 being the worst. You can either put in the town's name, zip code or the school district to get the local schools and their rating. In my opinion, any school or district that is a 6 or better is pretty good school and more than likely a good middle class area.

You can also use Trulia's crime map (Google it) and you will find neighborhoods with the most reported crimes (shows in red to orange) to the least (shows in yellow to green).

Those are just some easy techniques to use without having to get off the couch. However, you do still need to drive around the area to see how the neighborhood really is.