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