“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor…
Would you be my, could you be my
Won’t you be my neighbor?”
-Mr. Rogers
What a beautiful sentiment about being neighborly, kind, welcomed, and included. Choosing where to buy a home is sometimes even more important than the type of home you buy. Finding the right neighborhood for you and your family might be more complicated than you think.
Schools and school boards comes to mind right away. If you are making a move to be in a specific school zone, we suggest taking a look at www.education.gouv.qc.ca. This site tells you which school boards are registered for your postal code. From there you can follow the links to the available school board and Schools you are zoned for.
Parks and social services add to a neighborhoods vibrance and community involvement. Municipalities offer great social services, libraries, public pools, tennis courts, fields, and green spaces. If nature and open space is important to you, consider Trip Advisor. Yes, you read that right. Trip Advisor ranks Montreal’s most beautiful parks. Mont-Royal park in Montreal, Centennial Park in D.D.O, Lafontaine park in the Plateau, Cap-Saint-Jacques’ nature park in the West Island, and Lachine Canal just to name a few.
As for social services, someone might want to consider what the municipality has to offer to families, seniors youth programs, the under privileged, and the mentally handicapped. Some neighborhoods are better suited for certain age group. Maybe you’re considering Cote-Saint Luc as your new community. The Côte Saint-Luc Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is a volunteer-based response team that serves the community above and beyond Urgences-Santé. They have 95 volunteers and 3 ambulances. That could be the difference of moving 2 streets over from N.D.G or Montreal West.
Safety for anyone is a top 3 priority. Whether you are walking at night, driving home, or sitting out in your backyard you want to feel safe. In 2016, Montreal launched an interactive map to show crimes around the island. It can be found on the city site or here https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/vuesurlasecuritepublique/#. More densely populated areas will have an up tick in crime or police interventions solely based on population numbers. Public security or a neighborhood watch might be something you will consider a priority for the area you choose. Outremont and Mount Royal together teamed up with SPVM to create a neighborhood watch program.
Another tool we use as realtors for a general picture of a neighborhood is WalkScore. There is a basic public portal which gives a snapshot of any given neighborhood. This site ranks shopping, parks, cycling, restaurants, and public transportation. www.walkscore.com.
The above neighborhood tips are great for you to start your research, the next few are better to be done with the guidance of your Real Estate professional. This is where your realtor can help guide you to better understand property values, average sale prices in an area, and how frequently homes are resold in a neighborhood. As your Real Estate professional, we have access to many services that allow us the opportunity to dig deeper for your benefit. Of course, one of our biggest tools is Centris. However, the backend of it gives us all the data, stats, and comparable reports we need to guide you in the right direction.
Whether you are thinking of your first move, second, third, or fifteenth, consider what is important to you and the community you hope to live in. Be opened to try new areas, explore, and get out of your comfort zone. Our city has so much to offer, you just have to know where to look.
Maybe one day we will be neighbors.
Richard Sholzberg