Whenever I’m showing homes in the city, the number one question I get is, “how safe is this neighborhood?” It’s a very common question when people from the suburbs are looking to buy within the city limits of Denver. Let’s face it, crime happens everywhere, but wouldn’t it be nice to know before you consider a certain neighborhood, what crime has happened and when?
Denver is like any city. One area could be safer than another. One block could be great and the next block not so much. If you don’t live in Denver you wouldn’t be familiar with what areas are safer and the ones that are not so safe. As a real estate agent, I can’t actually tell anyone this neighborhood is safe. However, I can point them to my favorite tool to determine if the neighborhood in question will work for them.
The city of Denver has a great website: http://tinyurl.com/DenverCrimeMap. This map breaks down what the different areas where crimes have happened. It’s automatically set up to look back two weeks. You can adjust it to see what’s happened over the past year or longer. Recently, my wife and I have started to look for a home in Denver. This tool was great because we could see exactly what crime was committed, on what day, and make an informed decision about where we would buy a home.
The Denver Crime Map also will break Denver up into neighborhoods. You can then select a neighborhood and see all offenses that were in the time period you’ve set the search for as well as how much crime density exists per square mile. These statistics can be changed based upon what crimes you’re looking for. For example, if you want to know how many auto thefts there were in the past six months instead of all crimes you can search for that.
While I do point my clients to this site to get they need to make an informed decision about the neighborhood and home they wish to purchase, but I do preface that the website is just a tool. Denver is a city and with any city comes crime. The numbers can be scary and even staggering. It can seem overwhelming when coming from Centennial, Parker, or Highlands Ranch. Just remember that when you live in a city, crime will exist.
Marc Bayes is a Broker Associate with the Colorado Dream House Team, Keller Williams Realty DTC. Contact Marc at 303-619-3052, marc@coloradodreamhouse.com,codreamhouse.com or coloradodreamhouse.com
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