[photopress:Ballard_RR_Bridge.JPG,thumb,alignright]In researching the options for different real estate search tools, I came across an interesting site called NeighborhoodScout. The idea behind the site is that it would help people moving to a new area find an appropriate neighborhood. I think that the idea is great, but my brief investigation came across some serious flaws in their implementation. For starters, I couldn’t get their algorithms to recommend a neighborhood in Seattle despite my effort to tweak my entries to things I thought would cause their algorithms to recommend Seattle. Instead the site kept recommending Bothell, which is a nice place to live, but not the neighborhoods I was looking for… Another major flaw is their pricing mechanism. The $20 fee to use the interesting parts of their tool seems like a major momentum killer for any website. As I alluded to yesterday, data wants to be free!
I have found a few other neighborhood sites, but they tend to be pretty focused on a local market. For example, Sustainable Seattle has an excellent site that maps demographic and environmental data for Seattle neighborhoods, but my current interest is in sites that have attempted to analyze real estate demographics on a neighborhood level based on national data.
Does anyone have any experience with NeighborhoodScout? Do you know of another neighborhood finders? I’d be very interested to hear about it!
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Dear Dustin,
My name is Andrew Schiller. I am the creator of NeighborhoodScout, and a (nerdy) Ph.D. geographer!
I read your review of our neighborhood search engine (NeighborhoodScout) with interest, and I think there was a little confusion about how to make it work best for finding great neighborhoods within big cities, like Seattle.
I would like to explain to hopefully remove the confusion, and make your experience better:
All of our data are specific to the individual census tract (neighborhood), except for school district ratings and crime. School district ratings are for the overall district, and crime is for the community (read why below). Your main complaint was that when you input your search criteria, it was not picking neighborhoods within Seattle as the top choices for you, but some great neighborhoods (you said) in the surrounding towns. The reason? Seattle neighborhoods are assigned the school district rating for the Seattle public school system (which is not as good as some of Seattle’s suburbs), and Seattle’s overall crime rate is higher than the crime rate in some of Seattle’s suburbs.
If you want to find great neighborhoods in big cities, like Seattle, then leave out crime and schools as search criteria, and put in the rest of your search criteria. Many people who live in big cities send their children to private schools, and importantly, the local neighborhood elementary school often reflects the level of education of adults in the neighborhood, so do select the search criteria for educated adults, along with the other criteria important to you, and you will find great neighborhoods in big cities!
I hope this helps. Very truly yours, Andrew Schiller, NeighborhoodScout.com
*Why are crime ratings for the community, and school ratings for the district?:
Crime Rates.
The crime rates we developed for NeighborhoodScout are based on data and crime statistics from the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department. We gather data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in the United States, and use a relational database to associate crime incidences from all of these law enforcement agencies to the specific local communities the agency covers, and hence in which community the crimes have occurred. The crime rates we provide are for the overall community. Individual areas within the community many have crime rates that vary. This is because police cruisers in most communities in the U.S. are not uniformly outfitted with global positioning systems to identify the address of the incidence. Until the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice begin to report based on where exactly the crime took place using GPS-type technology, there is no way for us to get to a rating that is based on the specific neighborhood. A few larger individual police departments do use GPS for their crime reporting, but because we cover all communities in the U.S., we cannot individually survey each department to ascertain if they may have begun using GPS. You can contact the individual police department to ascertain if they are one of the few that report neighborhood crime rates or provide neighborhood crime rate maps.
The data used from these 17,000 local law enforcement agencies are the FBI defined “crime index” crimes. Index crimes are the eight crimes the FBI combines to produce its annual crime index. These offenses include willful homicide, forcible rape, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, larceny over $50, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In order to compare statistical information on a national basis the FBI came up with a common definition for crime comparison.
The index seeks to overcome differences in individual state statues, that would ignore how the individual is charged, and create a standardized definition of crime classification. This was done through defining serious and non-serious offenses. Part I crimes are comprised of serious felonies and Part II crimes are comprised of non-serious felonies and misdemeanors. Together these two types of classifications make up the crimes reported in the Uniform Crime Reports.
School District Ratings.
We use school district level data from the National Center for
Education Statistics to create our school district ratings. Our public
schools ratings combine student to teacher ratios (smaller classes mean more
personal attention), spending per student on core instruction (not football
teams or buses), and rates of graduation, in a multi-metric measure that is both comparable across districts within a state, and across districts in different states.
Public school districts often cover an entire city, or a set of smaller towns that pool educational resources within a single district. Because our neighborhoods
are of a higher resolution than the school districts, you might find
that adjoining neighborhoods do not show any differences in school
quality, even though there may be.
Unfortunately, because reporting by individual schools can be inconsistent and there is no national standardized testing in the United States that allows comparative
ratings for individual schools across state lines, there is no way to
show our data at a higher resolution. That is why the education level
of adults in the neighborhood is a powerful addition that we provide.
You see, the neighborhood unit we use is the census tracts (the official government designation for a neighborhood), and living on one street within a census tract, or even on one part of one street within a census tract, can change the elementary school one goes to, and sometimes even
the middle school or high school. Therefore, simply choosing a neighborhood does not limit you to a specific set of schools. We rate neighborhoods, and the schools will vary within any neighborhood, so we use the school district. Importantly, these small school attendance
boundaries within any school district change all the time. In addition,
in many, many school districts around the nation, a person can live in
any part of the school district and attend any school within that
district so they are not limited to the school nearest their address,
but they are limited to the school district. Therefore, we choose to
give you ratings for the school district and apply them to the
neighborhoods within that district. Using NeighborhoodScout, it is
possible to simply select that you want to be within 10 miles of
Seattle, Washington, and you want a list of the neighborhoods in the
best school districts in that area. Instantly, NeighborhoodScout will
deliver you all neighborhoods ranked in order from best to worst with
regard to school district rating.
A note of caution: Reporting to the National Center
for Education Statistics is not a requirement, it is voluntary. Although the
vast majority of school districts do report the data correctly, we have
found that in some instances school districts under report and do not
provide all the data that we use in our calculation. Whether it is because
of an oversight or because they do not want to provide data that may not
shed the best light on their district, they can inflate or deflate a ranking
of their particular school district by not reporting everything that is
asked for.
In order to compensate for this, we further refine district-wide ratings as described above –
by crossing the school district rating with the education level of adults in each
neighborhood to find the best public schools. Research has shown that
adults who are more educated support education the strongest so by combining
these two characteristics it ensures that the neighborhoods with the best
schools rise to the top.
Dear Dustin,
My name is Andrew Schiller. I am the creator of NeighborhoodScout, and a (nerdy) Ph.D. geographer!
I read your review of our neighborhood search engine (NeighborhoodScout) with interest, and I think there was a little confusion about how to make it work best for finding great neighborhoods within big cities, like Seattle.
I would like to explain to hopefully remove the confusion, and make your experience better:
All of our data are specific to the individual census tract (neighborhood), except for school district ratings and crime. School district ratings are for the overall district, and crime is for the community (read why below). Your main complaint was that when you input your search criteria, it was not picking neighborhoods within Seattle as the top choices for you, but some great neighborhoods (you said) in the surrounding towns. The reason? Seattle neighborhoods are assigned the school district rating for the Seattle public school system (which is not as good as some of Seattle’s suburbs), and Seattle’s overall crime rate is higher than the crime rate in some of Seattle’s suburbs.
If you want to find great neighborhoods in big cities, like Seattle, then leave out crime and schools as search criteria, and put in the rest of your search criteria. Many people who live in big cities send their children to private schools, and importantly, the local neighborhood elementary school often reflects the level of education of adults in the neighborhood, so do select the search criteria for educated adults, along with the other criteria important to you, and you will find great neighborhoods in big cities!
I hope this helps. Very truly yours, Andrew Schiller, NeighborhoodScout.com
*Why are crime ratings for the community, and school ratings for the district?:
Crime Rates.
The crime rates we developed for NeighborhoodScout are based on data and crime statistics from the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department. We gather data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in the United States, and use a relational database to associate crime incidences from all of these law enforcement agencies to the specific local communities the agency covers, and hence in which community the crimes have occurred. The crime rates we provide are for the overall community. Individual areas within the community many have crime rates that vary. This is because police cruisers in most communities in the U.S. are not uniformly outfitted with global positioning systems to identify the address of the incidence. Until the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice begin to report based on where exactly the crime took place using GPS-type technology, there is no way for us to get to a rating that is based on the specific neighborhood. A few larger individual police departments do use GPS for their crime reporting, but because we cover all communities in the U.S., we cannot individually survey each department to ascertain if they may have begun using GPS. You can contact the individual police department to ascertain if they are one of the few that report neighborhood crime rates or provide neighborhood crime rate maps.
The data used from these 17,000 local law enforcement agencies are the FBI defined “crime index” crimes. Index crimes are the eight crimes the FBI combines to produce its annual crime index. These offenses include willful homicide, forcible rape, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, larceny over $50, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In order to compare statistical information on a national basis the FBI came up with a common definition for crime comparison.
The index seeks to overcome differences in individual state statues, that would ignore how the individual is charged, and create a standardized definition of crime classification. This was done through defining serious and non-serious offenses. Part I crimes are comprised of serious felonies and Part II crimes are comprised of non-serious felonies and misdemeanors. Together these two types of classifications make up the crimes reported in the Uniform Crime Reports.
School District Ratings.
We use school district level data from the National Center for
Education Statistics to create our school district ratings. Our public
schools ratings combine student to teacher ratios (smaller classes mean more
personal attention), spending per student on core instruction (not football
teams or buses), and rates of graduation, in a multi-metric measure that is both comparable across districts within a state, and across districts in different states.
Public school districts often cover an entire city, or a set of smaller towns that pool educational resources within a single district. Because our neighborhoods
are of a higher resolution than the school districts, you might find
that adjoining neighborhoods do not show any differences in school
quality, even though there may be.
Unfortunately, because reporting by individual schools can be inconsistent and there is no national standardized testing in the United States that allows comparative
ratings for individual schools across state lines, there is no way to
show our data at a higher resolution. That is why the education level
of adults in the neighborhood is a powerful addition that we provide.
You see, the neighborhood unit we use is the census tracts (the official government designation for a neighborhood), and living on one street within a census tract, or even on one part of one street within a census tract, can change the elementary school one goes to, and sometimes even
the middle school or high school. Therefore, simply choosing a neighborhood does not limit you to a specific set of schools. We rate neighborhoods, and the schools will vary within any neighborhood, so we use the school district. Importantly, these small school attendance
boundaries within any school district change all the time. In addition,
in many, many school districts around the nation, a person can live in
any part of the school district and attend any school within that
district so they are not limited to the school nearest their address,
but they are limited to the school district. Therefore, we choose to
give you ratings for the school district and apply them to the
neighborhoods within that district. Using NeighborhoodScout, it is
possible to simply select that you want to be within 10 miles of
Seattle, Washington, and you want a list of the neighborhoods in the
best school districts in that area. Instantly, NeighborhoodScout will
deliver you all neighborhoods ranked in order from best to worst with
regard to school district rating.
A note of caution: Reporting to the National Center
for Education Statistics is not a requirement, it is voluntary. Although the
vast majority of school districts do report the data correctly, we have
found that in some instances school districts under report and do not
provide all the data that we use in our calculation. Whether it is because
of an oversight or because they do not want to provide data that may not
shed the best light on their district, they can inflate or deflate a ranking
of their particular school district by not reporting everything that is
asked for.
In order to compensate for this, we further refine district-wide ratings as described above –
by crossing the school district rating with the education level of adults in each
neighborhood to find the best public schools. Research has shown that
adults who are more educated support education the strongest so by combining
these two characteristics it ensures that the neighborhoods with the best
schools rise to the top.
Andrew,
Thanks for the comprehensive background on your stuff!
I noticed at the Where2.0 conference a unique competitor (Fannie Mae) entered this space with their extremely interesting DataPlaces site… They don’t have all the same data as you, but in same areas, (and housing in particular) their dataset is even more comprehensive (and it is free!).
Anyway and either way, keep up the great work!
Andrew,
Thanks for the comprehensive background on your stuff!
I noticed at the Where2.0 conference a unique competitor (Fannie Mae) entered this space with their extremely interesting DataPlaces site… They don’t have all the same data as you, but in same areas, (and housing in particular) their dataset is even more comprehensive (and it is free!).
Anyway and either way, keep up the great work!
Dear Dustin,
Thank you for the quick and thoughtful response!
I took a look at DataPlaces, and it is indeed good, raw data. There is a huge different, though, that it seems you may have missed. DataPlaces provides neighborhood data, and NeighborhoodScout is a neighborhood search engine that finds the best neighborhoods for each person or family based on the criteria they select.
If you already know the neighborhoods you want, then raw data is the way to go. But if you want to find the best neighborhoods from among, for example, the 1,000 or so neighborhoods in greater Seattle, then NeighborhoodScout provides a different level of service from manually checking neighborhood after neighborhood to find the best ones for you. In a way, NeighborhoodScout is like Google for neighborhoods!
Remember the web before search engines? One had to go to directories, or search site after site trying to find the best websites for our need at the moment. The same is true with most neighborhood information sites today, and that is why we created NeighborhoodScout, to bring the search technology revolution to finding the right neighborhood – before you buy a home or move.
Dear Dustin,
Thank you for the quick and thoughtful response!
I took a look at DataPlaces, and it is indeed good, raw data. There is a huge different, though, that it seems you may have missed. DataPlaces provides neighborhood data, and NeighborhoodScout is a neighborhood search engine that finds the best neighborhoods for each person or family based on the criteria they select.
If you already know the neighborhoods you want, then raw data is the way to go. But if you want to find the best neighborhoods from among, for example, the 1,000 or so neighborhoods in greater Seattle, then NeighborhoodScout provides a different level of service from manually checking neighborhood after neighborhood to find the best ones for you. In a way, NeighborhoodScout is like Google for neighborhoods!
Remember the web before search engines? One had to go to directories, or search site after site trying to find the best websites for our need at the moment. The same is true with most neighborhood information sites today, and that is why we created NeighborhoodScout, to bring the search technology revolution to finding the right neighborhood – before you buy a home or move.
As I commented on a previous post, the more knowledge a potential buyer has on an area the better. They can make quicker and more informed decisions when the information they need is at their finger tips.
Walt
Regarding Neighborhood Scout, I found it useful when searching for a rental in Seattle. However, their recurring monthly charges are extremely high and customer service will NOT help you if you don’t cancel your subscription at the exact right time. In fact, they weren’t even remotely helpful. Their 3 paragraph email was basically “you signed up, you knew it was recurring, and we cannot help you
I am a neighborhoodscout user and I have to say I am not happy with the customer service and the high fee they charge. I am trying to find a place to buy 2nd home and vacation home for retirement, I try to search many states and cities to compare the demographics and try to find where to stay in the future. Then I got BLOCKED by the system saying my usage pattern is commercial use. This is CRAZY! They didn’t tell you how they decide it’s commercial use or personal use when you sign up and pay them and all of a sudden they told you your account is now blocked and don’t allow you to keep using the site even your account is still the “PREMIUM” paid account. I like the design of the website and the approach but I am really disappointed about how they do business and they are not customer friendly.
Beware of the recurring fee. Customer service didn’t want to help at all, and they simply want your money irregardless or whether or not you used their services during those periods. In my dictionary, thats fraud. Extremely disappointed by their business practices.
Neighborhood Scout is a a purveyor of useless, obsolete and inaccurate information. We made offers to buy a home that was rated as extremely safe on their site, just to find that neither the crime statistics or demographic description were up to date. One of the areas deemed “very safe” had a 500% increase in crime and several drive by shootings. Furthermore, they will auto renew your monthly subscription at the highest price until you notice it and then refuse to provide any credit. By contrast, most reputable online companies will provide a speedy refund knowing that consumers do not always read and understand the fine print in usch negative option marketing practices.
I should add that this is just my personal opinion based on my limited experience with the product, but I am not happy with their customer service policy and negative option marketing. Why don’t they offer a plain one month plan? or send renewal notifications?