I can't speak to regrets about buying a home, but I can say I wished I had visited more than once the apartment I rented in Baltimore City. I should've talked the residents about pests in the building and area because I could have avoided a lot of frustration by living elsewhere.

The advice that i always give to friends is to visit the house at different times during the day.See what its like around 2:30-3:30 when the schoolkids are just getting home.And see what its like around 10 PM when drugdealers and other unsavory characters might be out.

When i was looking for a house in Highlandtown i always went straight to the basement.I could then check out the bare brick walls for cracks.And look at the exposed wood beams for termite damage.

I also always looked at how much trash was in the alley and gutters.If it was obvious that not even one person on the block was sweeping up , than that was a bad sighn for me.

I found a nice block that had 1 or 2 bad residents who soon moved out.But i would never recomend someone living on a block where they would have to wait for several bad people to move before things got better.

Having to wish that a magority of your neighbors would move is a depressing situation .

Fortuantly the vast majority of my neighbors are nice and the one bad apple moved[ after a homicide in his house].

I would also say that one of the advantages of living in the city is being within walking distance of things.

So even if someone owns a car they might want to think about how far a walk their house is from the grocery store or bar/resturaunts.

Back when i was renting i would find the local laundromat and start looking from that point outwards.

Jamie,

Realistically, there is no way one can be 100% sure the home is perfect. (And, honestly, are there any perfect homes in the Baltimore area _and_ in the price range an average family can afford?)

A barking dog may not be there today, but there is no guarantee your neighbors won't get one tomorrow. Even the major things - look at the developments around Arundel Mills, I bet the property values will go down as soon as the proposed casino is up.

This doesn't mean, of course, that one should just give up. Even when looking for a place to rent we stopped by late at night to check if there is anything different. (There wasn't, but guess what - the place was rented out before we called the landlord in the morning.)

But any information should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, I live in Glen Burnie and, if you ask me, Glen Burnie is quite OK. But a friend of mine lived just across the street and was a witness to some drug-related shooting and his place was broken into. Go figure.

Also I want to point out that many things may be actually found online nowadays. Last year we made an offer on a townhome, which we visited twice and absolutely loved. We didn't go to the police but I asked some people who lived in the area and they said it was OK. Fortunately, my husband did some research and discovered a restricted web site for the community with the complaints about the junkies knocking on the doors and such. We pulled the offer at once. Maybe we overreacted, but I don't regret that decision.

Now we're in search of a new home again, but if it doesn't have a freeway or a railroad in the backyard and no bullet holes - I'll take it.

A friend of mine almost bought lovely house next to rock creek park in DC, untill she went by at night and felt the street was so dark she'd be terrified coming home late from work.
That said, I wish I hadn't believed owner when she said (and the house inspector also believed her) that the water in the basement was the fault of a plumber who had just moved the washer and not hooked it up correctly. Actually, it was a major outlet pipe problem and I think she knew it. But after several thousand dollars of fix, its a beautiful townhouse in a beautiful neighborhood, reputed to be one of the best in Baltimore, but even so seems affected by the crime wave of late

I would just like to point out that Google Earth maps have made researching an area a lot easier . If you live in ,say Chicago , and you want to move to Baltimore , you can use the "Street View" part of the map and see what the neighborhood looks like.

Its not perfect.And its not as good as going to the neighborhood yourself. But if you live far away it defintly can help you get an idea what the neighborhood is like.

It's probably good to consider what things are like in different seasons, too. Trees might be a pretty sound barrier in the summer, but once the winter rolls around and those leaves fall ...

Before I bought the townhome I live in, I was wrestling between buying that one and another one in a father neighborhood. I went to both houses relatively late at night on a Friday (I thought that would be the noisiest time) and sat for a while, walked around, etc. I also visited during the day, outside of the two visits I had with the realtor. I also did a practice bike commute with a friend to see how bikeable the area really was. Things look alot different from the driver's seat of a car vs. a bike saddle. I decided on my current house partly because the other house was in a more crowded/condensed neighborhood that felt loud and not as comfortable late at night.

@Pete - If you like street view from Google Maps, you out to check out birds eye view from Bing Maps too.

Regarding brian's comment #9:Thanks for the advice MR Brian. I'll have to check that out.