I had a conversation with my Grandfather-in-law about where my wife and I live when he actually said he “wouldn’t be caught in that part of town with out packin’ heat.” He actually said that. I don’t mind the hip slang coming from my 80 year old in-law, but that he still thinks this “part of town” requires you to neo-ize yourself. Granted he hasn’t been here in quite a few years, but so much has changed.
“Do you think that’s a good neighborhood? I want to live in a good neighborhood. I would never live in that neighborhood. What do you think is a good neighborhood?”
These are the kind of questions/statements I get everyday as a real estate agent. Unfortunately, I can’t really respond to these types of inquiries. As a licensed Realtor, I can not “steer” clients one way or another. It happens to be against the law and falls under Fair Housing regulations. So what can I do? How can I help someone decide whether this home would be a good place to raise a family? How can I say that this neighborhood is better than that neighborhood?
Well, I make posts like this. Well actually I think about writing this type of post. Then I notice that Bob Broad over at the Portland Real Estate Cafe beat me to it. Thanks Bob. He points out how you can use Portland Maps to find out what crimes have been reported in the area.
So what does the site say about the Pearl District?
These pictures are just a snipit of information that is available. I would highly recommend visiting the site to check out all that there is to offer. It breaks it down to cover the specific types of crimes as well.
The most interesting thing I found on the site was the information on sexual predators. This is another area that we are not really supposed to talk about. The site provides a great google mashup of where they are living. If you move your mouse over the red icons, it will provide profile information for the sexual predators.
It is important for people to feel safe in the Pearl District. It’s great tools like these that help people stay aware of what is happening in their neighborhood.
Portland Maps says that this data was last updated Dec 2007.
