A recent article posted on msn.com titled "What Realty Agents Won't Tell You" would have been more appropriately titled "What Realty Agents Can't Tell You." The article is informative but leaves the impression, at least initially, that agents don't want to tell clients certain things. However, the article later explains that fair-housing laws and the agents' desire to not engage in steering precludes those agents from providing that information. By the way, "steering" is directing a client toward or away from a particular property or neighborhood in a discriminatory manner.
The author of the article provides several resources for finding information about the neighborhood under consideration. These sources include familywatchdog.us, schoolmatters.com, and scorecard.com, a website that offers an environmental scorecard at the county level. Of course, it's always a good idea to go straight to the source and contact the local school system and the local government office.
For information on neighborhoods in Grand Rapids, go to grmag.com, click on "Article Archives" at the lower left of the screen, scroll down to "August 2007 A City of Neighborhoods," and then click on "Read Full Story." For your convenience, I've added a link to Grand Rapids magazine to the left side of my blog.
Be an informed consumer of real estate - and websites, for that matter.
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