Finding a real estate investment that offers the best returns is often about location, location, and location. However, “location” encompasses a wide range of factors that can impact your bottom line.
To generate the best financial outcome from an investment, it's essential to evaluate factors like property taxes, the job market, and neighborhood amenities. In addition, one part of this equation that's often overlooked or is difficult to evaluate is the crime rate. Our Chester County property management team talks about how to consider area crime statistics when analyzing a potential investment property!
Neighborhood Safety Matters to Renters!
When choosing a property, investors often have to think like a renter. From the perspective of most tenants, location matters—but it also has to be a safe location. Keeping quality residents in a rental property long-term means providing homes in safe areas where renters enjoy their lifestyle in a safe neighborhood with low crime rates.
Failing to consider the crime rate in a prospective neighborhood can dash your hopes of a profitable residential property management venture! Neighborhood safety is a top deciding factor for prospective tenants. When analyzing potential ROI, take time to research local crime rates and talk with property management experts about how these numbers could impact your bottom line.
How to Analyze Crime Rates In Potential Areas
So, where can a property owner find crime information about a neighborhood? From websites to digging into local information from municipal resources and property managers, investors should incorporate multiple sources to gain an accurate picture of crime rates in an area. Depending on the location of your potential property in Chester County or the surrounding areas, crime rates can fluctuate from neighborhood to neighborhood.
Investigate Neighborhood Safety
With the right online crime mapping tools and safety resources, investors have more access than ever before to see if a potential neighborhood will offer the safety level your tenants demand. For instance, AreaVibes is an online tool that delivers information about neighborhoods, including a livability score based on up-to-date crime rates collected from various local law enforcement agents. Similarly, searching for information on SpotCrime produces neighborhood-specific crime rates. Other online resources to explore include the National Sex Offender Public Website, County Records, and Google searches.
Extract Useful Information From Crime Data
What should property owners do with the information they find? Applying insights from the information you find can require local insights! Property managers can help you connect numbers and statistics to trends or types of crimes in areas that might be wise to avoid for your next investment.
Property owners should also look for crime rate trends as these change from year to year. Scratch off areas that show a gradual increase in certain crimes and look for neighborhoods experiencing lower crime rates and revitalization. Crime stats can also help reveal if transitional neighborhoods are worth your investment!
Visit the Neighborhood
There's a wealth of information to be gained from getting a first-hand experience of your prospective neighborhood. When touring the community, a property management expert can help you look for warning signs of a troubling location, including:
- Fewer kids playing in the street
- Poor street lighting
- A heavy presence of police in the area
- Nearby properties that are in a state of disrepair (broken windows, run-down buildings, or overgrown yards)
- Abandoned storefronts
- Unkempt parks
These are signs that a neighborhood might not be a safe place to invest. On the other hand, limited police presence, a neighborhood watch, and a thriving community social scene are often signs of a safe neighborhood!
Ask Questions
Asking the right questions can help you with the answers you need! When visiting a neighborhood, talk to business owners, property management experts, and nearby residents. Ask them whether they would recommend the place and if there's been any recent criminal activity in the area. Numbers and statistics can tell you a lot, but the firsthand experience can often help you make informed decisions about your next investment property!
A Chester County Property Manager Helps Investors Analyze Neighborhoods!
Analyzing the crime rate before making a real estate investment can take time, but it’s a necessary component to finding the best properties and maximizing returns! Fortunately, the best Chester County property management company has valuable insights that can help you make quicker work of studying a neighborhood and running the numbers. Having such reliable information on hand ensures that you make an investment that generates the long-term income you need to meet your goals!
Getting valuable input from an experienced property manager when evaluating an investment is just the first step. With professional property management services, investors enjoy better returns, including tenant screening, lease drafting, day-to-day maintenance, and more. If this type of full-service property management sounds like what you need to experience better ROIs, don't hesitate to get in touch with the Rentwell team!
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