The ten minute walk

Almost everyone tours houses at eleven on a Saturday morning, which is the single hour of the week when every neighborhood in Pennsylvania looks approximately the same. Cars are gone. Somebody is mowing. The light is high and flattering and tells you nothing. I have stood on a lot of sidewalks at eleven on a Saturday with people who were about to make the largest decision of their lives, and I have learned that the hour is the problem.

Come back at six on a Wednesday. Park two blocks away on purpose. Then walk.

Go at the hour you will actually live there

Six in the evening tells you where people put their cars, whether the street is a route or a destination, whether anybody is outside, and how the light falls on the front of the house at the exact moment you would be coming home to it. A street that is quiet at eleven and a wall of parked bumpers at six is not the street you toured. It is a different street with the same address.

What to notice

• Trees. Mature street trees mean somebody has been maintaining this place for forty years.
• Sidewalk repair. Fresh patches in the concrete are a sign of ongoing private investment.
• The condition of the third best house on the block, not the best one.
• Whether the corner property is cared for. Corners are where neglect starts.
• The noise floor. Stand still for sixty seconds and just listen.
• Where the nearest thing worth walking to is, and whether the walk there is any good.

You are not evaluating a house. You are evaluating the twenty houses that will determine what yours is worth.

The edge condition

Pay attention to what the neighborhood backs onto. A rear boundary against preserved farmland, a park, or a school field behaves very differently across twenty years than a rear boundary against a parcel somebody is holding. In Lancaster and Chester Counties especially, the difference between preserved ground and unpreserved ground is worth asking about out loud, of someone who would know.

Ask three people

Someone walking a dog will tell you the truth about a street in ninety seconds, because people walking dogs have nothing to sell and a great deal of accumulated observation. So will whoever is behind the counter at the nearest coffee shop. So will a neighbor pulling weeds, if you say plainly that you are thinking about buying nearby. Nobody has ever been offended by that question.

Walk back to the car slowly. If you find yourself already noticing which windows are lit, and which porch you would want, you have your answer, and it came from the sidewalk rather than the listing.