Nothing beats driving the neighborhood and talking to local residents when inspecting an area where you want to buy a home, but when you want to save some legwork you might want to try an online website like Zillow.com (www.zillow.com).
On Zillow (and similar websites) you will of course be able to find house listings based on your search criteria (location, number of bedrooms, etc.) but you will also get information on:
price of the house over time (if it has gone up or down)
schools information
demographics (how many married, single, etc.)
price of similar properties in the area
local restaurants and
job information/opportunities
Interest rates are at the lowest they have been in years (below 4.5% in many cases). The difference between a 4.5% interest rate and a 6.5% interest rate on a $200,000 is about $250/month.
Using a site like zillow.com is an excellent way to see how much prices have dropped (or by miracle gone up) in your neighborhood. Using sites like this will make sure you don't overpay versus the current market price.
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