Find out about your neighborhood on Houseberry

Houseberry, a local neighborhood website founded on the Peninsula, has just finished scoring and ranking all neighborhoods in the Bay Area, including top neighborhood lists for Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside. and Portola Valley. Some may surprise you!

Each neighborhood has its own “Neighborhood Page” with details of the individual component scores that form the overall score. (West Menlo as an example.)

The site also allows users to personalize their neighborhood search, so they can emphasize certain factors that matter most to them and eliminate factors that matter less to them.

“Initial feedback has shown that there is a surprising level of interest from people who are not searching for housing but more just want to check in our data from their own neighborhoods and share their own experiences,” says Houseberry spokesperson Matt Stevens.  “So we have added a Neighbor Comments section and Q&A to each neighborhood page and will be collecting neighborhood feedback from the true experts who live in the neighborhood, and buyers can ask potential future neighbors questions about life in the neighborhood.”

Here is an overview of individual factors going into the Overall Neighborhood Score:

School Score – Based on Test Scores for schools serving that neighborhood. “We get this data from Greatschools, but from feedback decided using test scores was more accurate in understanding a neighborhood versus the Greatschools Score,” explained Matt.

Safety – Bay Area normalized from crime data from multiple sources, weighted more towards violent crime vs property.

Amenities – Includes the average “Walk-Score” for the neighborhood, as well as more subjective factors like Public Spaces (proximity to and quality of parks, walking trails, etc), and Curb Appeal (how well maintained the neighborhood is, how pleasant to walk around, etc).

Price – Weighted median price for the neighborhood taken directly from MLS data

Value – This factor uses a machine learning model to analyze what a buyer gets for their money within a given neighborhood – as in how far does the dollar go versus similar neighborhoods with perhaps less name appeal.

Appreciation – Weighted appreciation for the neighborhood as a whole, based on MLS data.

Image is screenshot of Houseberry’s heat map page (the main navigation tool)