When purchasing a longterm dwelling is it common practice to interview the neighbors/be interviewed by the neighbors?

The answer totally depends on the location of your residency.

I mean if the first house you could afford was in the roughest part of Botswana or Venezuela I would avoid an interview with the neighbors.

That is the one thing I should have done prior to my first home purchase and honestly the one major complaint I have about this purchase is my neighbors. It’s an established neighborhood where I’m over 30 years younger and single. Let’s just say I catch some static for not sharing similar lifestyles.

It’s not exactly a common practice, but should be. Incompatibility with neighbors can ruin where you live. Not to say they have to be instant best buds with you, but it’s important to find out that they park a semi in front of the house on the weekend, or that an ex-husband shows up periodically and the police are called, or there are wild parties every weekend, before you buy the house.

It’s a big purchase, and you should be comfortable in the area.

We did the first house we bought, but not any of the other times. The neighbors of the house we have lived in the last 19 years have changed in nearly every house on the block.

No. It’s pretty friggen weird !! Buy a place in a decent neighbourhood – not in the crack ho part of town, then it doesn’t matter.

I think its a great idea. Go for it.

Before I bought my house I interviewed the neighbors and then came to the neighborhood at different hours of the day and night just to observe. I think it was especially important because I bought a foreclosure property that had been unoccupied for about 20 months. The property is in a good neighborhood but anything left alone for that long can attract some attention, good or bad.

One cannot be too vigilant, especially when throwing down several hundred thousand dollars over the course of half a lifetime. This is where you are going to live. As Andy Sipowicz told Andy Jr., “people, places, the things they do, and the times they do them.”

I found that on this street that is about 2/10 of a mile long, the four houses at my end have been owned for <5 years, and the rest have been owned for >24 years. Those people told me that they don’t want any trouble from the new people. I promised I would oblige.

Sometimes what you learn is not only about the neighbors, but about the freight train that rolls through town at 4:30am or 11:30pm.

By all means, if you have the time and patience, talk to the neighbors and answer their questions too.

I agree with @birdland33

it can be invaluable to check out an area at different times & talk to your neighbours to try & get a feel for what you maybe moving into, after many years & lots of house moves I’ve finally found my tranquil place, I’ve had the neighbours from hell & the freight train Lol.. :-/
In my experience it’s not the most affluent area’s that can offer that.. I once lived on a new build site which was plagued by gangs of roaming kids who had nothing else better to do than vandalise others property, their parents were the most indifferent people I ever came across, as their little Timmy or Jane wouldn’t dream of throwing bricks at your car or destroy your fence with fire. For the most part these were younger families who’s parents were never there, always working, most of the kids were latchkey kids & would be left to fend for themselves until Mammy or Daddy came home….. It’s really down to a smidge of good luck & good detective work on your part, by no means take what the estate agent says for granted as they are only interested in selling the place for a nice fat pay day….. Good luck & I wish you well, from one who’s been there :-/

I always say I am going to do this when I buy my next house, and I never do. I think it’s a great idea though. You are going to be living with these folks for a long time. Before making a huge investment you should know who your neighbors are.

I wish I had…not sure it would have done much good as they were sooooo nice and fun at first. Then years later it turned out they were not only bigots but anti-Semites as well and anal nut jobs. My 11 yr old surprised me by cutting the lawn and wandered maybe 6” too far onto their lawn and Mr. neighbor spray paints a safety blue line down the property line….the next week he made it day-glow orange! MF!! I was so mad and I realize there is a God as we finally sold our house and get to move away from these toxic mean and angry people.

One day and one interview is not going to tell you everything about them.Some people don’t show their true colors until much later.I have always taken my chances and have been just fine.Even living across the street from “Steviant” didn’t affect my life too much,after I told him what I thought,that is ;)

I interviewed my neighbors when I moved into an apartment. I wanted to work for a labor union, and the first person I interviewed was married to a labor union organizer. I felt pretty good about that, so I rented the apartment. A few years later, we bought the house next door to the labor union organizer. His son babysat our kids and our kids absolutely adore the summer camp he is on the board of.

For a long time the block would have a block party on Memorial day and Labor day. Lately there’s been more turnover. We’ve been living there twenty years now, so I guess we count as old timers. It’s still a nice block, but not quite as collective as it used to me. It’s full of doctors and lawyers and professors plus a few grad students, several with kids. There’s one land trust house with two families living in it.

Except for one couple, everyone is pretty liberal and secular. The one couple is Republican, and fairly religious, and they have what is probably the most dysfunctional family on the block. I was amazed one day to see one of the children run out of the house, apparently in anger. He left the front door wide open, and no one came to close it. I don’t know if anyone else was home or not. Haven’t seen him in years, not even at holidays.

I think you can get a feel for the neighborhood in one day—or I could, anyway. I’ve had a lot of experience judging neighborhoods since I had to do it for a job I held for a few years. It helps to watch for longer so you can find out about the sounds and smells and what-not that are regular events in the neighborhood. I am very particular about noise, so I wanted to live on an interior street in the middle of that street—as far away from bus sounds and subway sounds and motorcycle sounds as I could get.

I had a lot of very particular criteria for the attributes I wanted my house to have. Many had to do with the neighborhood—particularly about being with people I would feel comfortable with. I think it’s well worth the effort to do your research on a neighborhood before you buy a house there.

We just bought a house and we certainly asked the real estate agent who the neighbours to the back were because their house is adjoined to ours. We also got a chance to meet the man when he took his garbage out one of the times we came for a look. We knew they had two boys, one my son’s age and one a year older. We took that as a plus and it’s been great and they are super people, as it turned out. Looking forward to summer on the veranda, overlooking the fjord, drinking wine and having BBQ’s with them and watching the kids play together in the yard. It means so much to have good neighbours, especially when you’re a bit out of town and home alone with kids.

We didn’t but wish we had when my ex husband and I first bought. It’s an excellent idea to stalk the neighborhood at different times of the day and also the weekend versus the work week. One of the great things about satellite is you can look up a property online and see what’s around it- a school you didn’t know was a few streets over, fire dept, animal shelter, etc.

You don’t know some one until you live with them…..... on the same street. Unless you see some weird dude eyeballing you from the other side of the hedge carrying a machine gun & playing the bagpipes chances are an interview isn’t going to tell you much about the long term.

My son just bought a house without interviewing the neighbors. A neighbors 3 large dogs got a hold of his chihuahua and mauled her to death the other day :-(