How Safe Is Your New Neighborhood? 8 Ways to Find Out

Moving soon? Investigating an area’s overall safety should be one of the first things you do before purchasing and committing to a new home. Thankfully, in today’s world, crime reports and city profile information have never been so easily accessible. All that’s required is an internet connection and a few minutes of your time. To help you out, we’ve included the eight best places to find important information on safety and crime in your new neighborhood. Stay safe and happy moving!

AreaVibes

One of the easiest tools for researching a new city and its neighborhoods is AreaVibes . The website analyzes aspects of individual towns and communities, giving them each an overall “Livability Score” out of 100. In addition to schools, amenities, cost of living, weather and the housing market, AreaVibes also analyzes a neighborhood’s crime rate. All you have to do is enter the address, neighborhood, or zipcode to see your city’s Livability Score and rankings. Within each city, AreaVibes provides a “Neighborhoods” tab, which can be used to find specific information on individual communities. These neighborhood crime reports will give you a general idea of the safety level of that area. It will also let you know:

  • The neighborhood’s total crime rate and crime statistics.
  • How the neighborhood’s crime rate compares to the national average and the state’s average.
  • Your chances of becoming a victim of crime in that neighborhood.

National Sex Offender Public Website

The National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW) is one of the very best resources for parents moving to a new neighborhood. The website is free and provides information on registered sex offenders in the area. Not only can you look up your current neighborhood to check for nearby offenders, but you can also investigate any potential new neighborhoods before relocating to an area. This tool is particularly helpful for those with children, as the website allows parents to access important information on any child predators in the neighborhood, and includes a photo of the offender. The website also provides important tips and advice on protecting yourself and your family from potential victimization. To utilize this tool more easily, download the NSOPW mobile app on your smartphone.

Moving.com’s City Profile Reports

Those looking for more comprehensive information on their new neighborhood should check out Moving.com’s City Profile Reports . Our website knows that safety information is a top concern when moving to a new city, which is why we provide a free tool to help you with researching each aspect of a new city. In addition to crime reports, our City Profile’s will provide information on the quality of the schools in the area, a cost of living estimate, climate, city statistics, residential data and more.

Moving.com’s City Profile Reports are updated annually, and provide data from various sources, including: U.S. Census Bureau estimates and projections (which include the latest monthly estimates for city-level populations); Bureau of Labor employment data by industry and occupation; Internal Revenue Service statistics on tax filers and year-to-year migration; Federal Bureau of Investigation, local police departments and municipalities for crime information; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for weather information.

Family WatchDog

Similar to NSOPW, Family WatchDog is a website that helps locate registered sex offenders in a neighborhood. The service is free and easy-to-use. All you have to do is enter the address of a potential new home. Family WatchDog’s map will mark the home addresses of registered sex offenders in the area. Additional photos and conviction information are also provided. I also recommend signing up on the website to receive Family WatchDog’s notification service. The website alerts subscribers as soon as a convicted sex offender registers an address in their neighborhood.

NeighborhoodScout

NeighborhoodScout is a fast and easy way to find information on any neighborhood in the country. Once you type in an address or city, the website directs you to a map of the neighborhood with information on real estate trends, unique characteristics, neighbors and demographics, school ratings and transportation information. The website also offers more in-depth neighborhood crime data, however, you may need to subscribe to the website for access. The data includes:

  • The number of neighborhood property and violent crimes each year.
  • Violent crime rate comparison chart.
  • Property crime rate comparison chart.
  • Crimes per square mile.

In addition, NeighborhoodScout provides plenty of useful information in its articles and listicles regarding neighborhood safety. From “the safest cities in America” to the “most dangerous cities in America,” you can learn which places to consider making your new home and which places to avoid – all on their blog.

Nextdoor

If you’re able to join your neighborhood’s Nextdoor group, I recommend doing so. The website is a free private social network for neighborhoods and communities, and allows neighbors to get acquainted online. Most discussions on the website center around local recommendations, local news, classifieds and of course, crime and safety. The website is a great place to learn how safe neighbors feel in their homes, and to find out about local crime. For instance, members of my local Nextdoor group will immediately report any sort of theft or burglary seen or experienced in our neighborhood on our local group site.

Unfortunately, unless you already live in-or-around your potential new neighborhood, you probably won’t be able to join that area’s Nextdoor group without living there. If moving to a new community, I suggest asking a neighborhood member (if you know one) whether you can glance over the area’s “crime and safety” information.

CrimeReports

Looking for crime data – and nothing else– in your potential new neighborhood? CrimeReports ’ mapping tool provides the simplest way to find crime data happening in a specific area. According to its website, CrimeReports is “the nation’s largest collection of law enforcement agencies committed to transparency, public access and citizen engagement.” The website allows anyone to submit a crime tip to a local law enforcement agency or to the Crime Stoppers program. Local law enforcement agencies also update their reports hourly, daily and even weekly to provide the most up-to-date crime information on the website. CrimeReports helps everyday citizens prevent crime from happening in the first place by letting people register their personal security cameras on the site.

You can sign up for CrimeReports alerts online. All you have to do is search for the address of interest, and click the “Create an Alert” button. The website also lets you choose the frequency of the alerts and which incident types you’d like to be alerted of.

SpotCrime

If you’re looking for specific crime incident data, SpotCrime is a great option. The crime data aggregator maps out city and county crime reports on Google Maps, and can send crime alerts to your email. Similar to CrimeReports, SpotCrime accepts crime information from local police departments, news reports and local user-generated content. On the website, the service states that its goal is to “provide the most accurate, timely geocoded crime information to the public.” All you have to do is enter your potential new address to see any crime reported in the area. SpotCrime includes reports of arrests, arson, assault, burglary, robbery, shooting, theft, vandalism and more.