I have another video coming up in my series of 5 Top Mistakes People Make When They Are Buying a House. It’s about neighbors.
I have been recommending that people talk to the neighbors of a property they are seriously interested in, both in my latest book and in my video series on YouTube. If you’re interested in reading the book for free, you can do so online at LinkedIn by clicking here.
Among other things they are a great font of information about the neighborhood as well as things the vendor might not tell you about the house you are looking at buying. If the neighbors like you, they may tell you things the vendor doesn’t want you to know, likewise you’ll find out if you gel with your potential neighbors.
I’ve said it before. People like to live next door to people like them. Don’t you?
I have an awesome neighbor. He vetted every person coming down the drive to look at the houses we eventually bought. If he didn’t like the look of them, he cranked up the heavy metal and played it full bore. When we arrived he came out to greet us and we hit it off instantly.
He is the neighborhood handyman and has helped probably half of the people in the street with something. For me it has been a few things that I couldn’t do, like pruning a tree, because I am waiting or ACC to approve back surgery for an injury I had last year. For others it is all sorts, from gardening to helping with car repairs, cleaning drains, building fences, you name it. He’s always there with a smile.
I have a long driveway and if someone comes down that he doesn’t recognise, he wanders down to greet them and check them out. Once he caught a couple of teenagers wandering down our driveway and peaking over the fence, he came and grilled them, seeing them off the property. They belonged to a new household in our cul-de-sac which had lots of people coming into the house and leaving with brown paper bags, which we suspected weren’t for school lunches.
He went and greeted the parents of the teenagers, welcomed them to the neighborhood and basically told them that walking down neighbors driveways was not a great idea unless they were invited and that if they were law abiding citizens, they would be welcomed to the neighborhood with open arms. He even invited them over for a drink. He went on to say that when there had been people behaving suspiciously, he had reported them to the Police, but of course he wasn’t implying they were doing anything wrong.
He also said he had noticed that they had a lot of visitors and was wondering if they were running a home business, something other people do in the street, for example one of them is a health practitioner, helping people with migraine headaches. He only got a mumbled response to the negative on that question.
Interestingly, about 6 weeks later, they moved out quite suddenly.
Neighbors can make or break your family home. I have a daily alert for stories about neighbors, good and bad. Here are a few, just from this week:
A paranoid schizophrenic neighbor in Birmingham stabbed his neighbours to death.
The number one cause of neighborly disputes. Fences.
How someone dealt with noisy neighbors using a very novel solution including naked mannequins.
A man who was infatuated with a neighbor shot up her home after she turned down his sexual propositions.
According to this story, if you move into a neighborhood with a lot of obese people, scientists say you have a high risk of filling out yourself.
Kloe Kardashian says you should love your racist neighbor. Personally I don’t need a racist neighbor.
I’ve been looking for ‘good neighbor’ stories in the digital media. I’m sure they are there, but they seem to be a lot less than the unhappy stories.
I’m not suggesting that a high percentage of neighbors are bad neighbors. I am suggesting you find out a bit more about them and from them, before you make an offer on that new house. It seems obvious right? So why do most people not do it?
SoLoMo Consulting 