Last weekend I met with an interested buyer to discuss a listing of mine, and he looked me in the eye and asked me, “how is the crime rate in the neighborhood?”
I can understand his reason for asking the question because I certainly would not want to move my wife and children into a crime plagued neighborhood either. 
But asking a salesman who is trying to “make-the-sale” such a question is crazy, risky, and the last thing he should have been doing. Yes, I consider myself trust-worthy but I don’t live in the neighborhood and really have no idea if someone had broken into a car over the weekend.
Get it?
Asking real estate agents for local crime info just isn’t a good idea.
So I always suggest people look up the data on the excellent police web sites, and here are a few from my market area in Northern Virginia or the Washington D.C. suburbs.
- The Fairfax County Police Department
- The Arlington County Police Department
- The City of Alexandria Police Department
- The City of Falls Church Police Department
- The City of Fairfax Police Department
- Town of Herndon Police Department
- Town of Vienna Police Department
- Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office
- The Prince William County Police Department
If there is another police department that I have left out then I will be happy to add them too!
