What to check about area?

kellaree

I've finally seemed to find a house we love and have an offer accepted but I wanted some advice on what I should check out about the area? Any particular websites with accurate stats?

I've driven round the area a few times and I plan to go at night as well but is there any other ways I should do my research on the area?

BlaEm

For locations of incidences: https://www.police.uk/

For crime rates, internet speed, sold and rental prices: https://www.checkmystreet.co.uk/

Maps standards of living:
http://illustreets.co.uk/

Not sure what sort of area you're looking in, but if a town / city: Check closing times of any nearby pubs / kebab shops etc, and consider whether your house is on a road or an alley that may be used as a short-cut or through road on return from them! Go there on a Friday or Saturday night to check for loiterers
Check for planning applications on the Council website for any future disruptions.
Check the ofsted rating of any nearby schools.

HouseBuyer77

Find the websites of any local news papers and search for the street name and surrounding street names.

streetcheck.co.uk is another to look at, though it (and other similar sites) use census data from 2011, very accurate for the time but areas change.

Googling 'street check', 'area check' and other such things will give you various sites that all or more less tell you same things but in different ways. Can be worth trawling through them to build up an overal picture of the place.

8-of-us

Check out to see if you can find a discussion page for the town/village if you are on facebook (or know someone who is) many a stories can pop up on those

moneyistooshorttomention

Yep...I think a good chat with someone from a local paper (and following the local paper for some time in advance) is a good idea - even if its one of those awful biased parochial little rags (in fact - particularly if it is....).

Back copies of newspapers should be available in your local library and the local librarians themselves would probably be aware of local issues and chat about them to you.

Local pubs of course for another possible source of grapevine info.

Seconded re searching for local Facebook pages. They can be very variable and extremely "local" in focus - but might give an idea. My local Facebook page is distinctly short on public information, another nearby one is there in theory but not much in practice - but there is a good one for another place nearby (and you would certainly find out whats what from that).

kellaree

Thanks guys

westv

You might find these helpful too

http://apps.opendatacommunities.org/showcase/deprivation

http://datashine.org.uk/

HouseBuyer77

I'd note that the illustreets thing seems pretty useless.

For example it rates my road as having a very high violent crime rate which is simply nonsense.

I think it's rated highly because 'violent crime' makes up a high proportion of total crime, but there's very little crime in the first place and the 'violent crime' includes common assault. Furthermore it's just reported crimes rather than convictions or similar.

So say you had a sleepy little street that basically saw no crime and in one year there were two reports to the police involving a loud argument and threats you'd have a 100% violent crime rate.

Say you had a dangerous inner city street where punch-ups were a nightly occurance and stabbings not particular rare plus plenty of other crime you would have a less than 100% violent crime rate.

So do view these statistics with care!