Selecting the Right Place To Live

Moving from Tactical to Strategic.

Why is it that, while the Real Estate Industry perpetually professes the importance of “Location, Location, Location” for when buying property, all of the major Real Estate portals and websites focus monumentally more on “Homes, Homes, Homes”?

Indeed, while a staggering level of information, images, and intricacies involving properties is readily available to web-aided Home Buyers, a stunning lack of organized data, information, knowledge, and wisdom exists concerning the selection of future communities.

Such content disparity reflects the Industry’s lack of assistance for Home Buyers…especially those who appreciate the significance of “Location, Location, Location.” Considering the importance that most of us place upon schools, recreation, medical services, transportation, shopping, houses of worship, culture, the environment, and the overall fabric of distinct communities, the lack of location-specific content can no longer remain overlooked.

The explanation as to why there is such lopsided content made available in favor of Homes (and not Communities) is one that, as the former CEO of Realtor.com, I feel equipped to provide.

My answer is that the Real Estate Industry’s business model is appropriately, and understandably, based upon compensation generated from the marketing and sale of individual properties…and not from revealing greater insights regarding Towns and Cities; from a Real Estate and lifestyle perspective. To that end, if you have ever wondered why your Real Estate Professional is more likely ask you, “What are you looking for in a home,” before asking, “What are you looking for in a town,” then the answer might be that Home Information is typically utilized to initially bring Buyers to Towns versus Town Information first being utilized to bring Buyers to Homes. This is all the more reason why I recommend that consumers first construct a Town, City, and Neighborhood strategy before venturing into considerations regarding specific properties.

Presently, since online aggregators of Real Estate Data secure content, revenue, or both from Real Estate Companies and Individuals…means, expectedly, that almost all Real Estate Data is Property-Specific vs. Town, City or Neighborhood-oriented.

As a Home Buyer (or for that matter, a Home Seller), you might ask, “Does the lack of equivalent emphasis on providing information regarding Town, Cities, and Neighborhoods have any significant impact on my Real Estate and lifestyle-related outcomes?” I say, “It absolutely does!”

One way that I will validate my assertion is that (according to research from the National Association of Realtors®) consumers are actually more willing to settle for less of a Home than to compromise on a Town, City or Neighborhood.

Yet, without adequate Real Estate Relevant Information made as readily available about Communities as Properties themselves, how does one know how knowledge-based one’s choices on where to live truly are?

This underserved (and in fact largely ignored) consumer need is why Town Advisor has come to the forefront.

Town Advisor local sites not only provide our site visitors deeper information on each particular Town we and our local Members of the Real Estate Town and City Advocates feature, but also a wide range of content and links relating to the all-important process of properly evaluating any and all potential Communities in which to reside.

Town Advisor believes that, in order for Home Buyers or Businesses to decide on any one Town, it first helps to first determine how to strategically evaluate and measure any and all Towns…and from one’s unique perspective.

And while Town Advisor offers you a step-by-step process designed to assist you in making the best decision possible on where to live, we also acknowledge that the pursuit of your future town or home is typically not a straight path.

Thus, we invite you to use elements of our site in any manner or order that best fits your needs each time you visit a Town Advisor local site.

Of additional note is how neither Town Advisor sites, nor our featured Real Estate Professionals, favor or represent any one particular Town. Thus, our role is never to persuade…but rather to help site visitors to better prepare.

Lastly, I respectfully encourage you, you and your partner, or you and your family to continue taking a relatively small amount of your valuable time now to better decipher the essence of individual Towns, Cities, and Neighborhoods in order to avoid potential years of regret later…resulting when selecting a Community that does not end up being a match for your important lifestyle aspirations.

Allan Dalton, President and Co-Founder of TownAdvisor.com