Furniture on the lawn. More than 3 cars (shabby ones) in front of each house. Litter. Stuff piled on the curb when it's not trash day. Unkempt lawns and landscaping. Absentee landlords who are letting properties go to seed.

This can happen in great neighborhoods when you get a lot of non-family renters. My street in Arlington 22207 (pricey) looks sketchier than some because we have a bunch of rental properties that aren't cared for. But it's still a very safe neighborhood feeding into great schools, and the people on the block are all really nice. So be careful before you judge a book by its cover!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Follow up: what would make a suburban neighborhood sketchy?

Vacant, dilapidated houses. Cars with bling-bling "rims." Questionable demographics. Lots of security system signs in people's houses.

Oh, you mean black people?

Having lived in the city in both Chicago and DC, I always drive over to a new place on a weeknight at around 11pm, before renting or buying. If there are street corner dealers or crackhouses around, you'll see it then.

Suburbia...overgrown yards, dilapidated houses, ratty fences/chain link, nonfunctional cars, jacked up pickup trucks, miscellaneous junk, indoor furniture outside, confederate flags (yikes!, but more likely further south), livestock (excluding Bethesda, where they seem to love chickens), pit bulls, loud music, kegerators, people hanging out on porches in wife beaters during the day, check cashing stores. An abundance of junky cars can be a red flag for multiple unrelated people living in a house. You know sketchy when you see it.

Pit bulls and chain link fencing in the front yard.

Anonymous wrote:Follow up: what would make a suburban neighborhood sketchy?

Vacant, dilapidated houses. Cars with bling-bling "rims." Questionable demographics. Lots of security system signs in people's houses.

Anonymous wrote:Follow up: what would make a suburban neighborhood sketchy?

chain link fencing, poor landscaping/lots of weeds/unworking cars in yards

A neighborhood full of cops.

Follow up: what would make a suburban neighborhood sketchy?

All of the above. And there are plenty of DC neighborhoods where there are bars on windows and doors. Even if they don't have too much of the litter and loiterers, the bars make it seem like it's unsafe to live there without a lot of precautions.

Anonymous wrote:Litter. Incurable defects like liquor stores or open-air drug markets or payday lenders. Unkempt lawns/stoops.

All of this.

Rusty lawn tools and the like just withering away in plain view. Open sheds and ports that are piled high with garbage and junk.

I'm from the hood, so I automatically get suspicious when I see grown men (in groups) hanging out in front of houses all day.

Bars on windows. I don't know if they still do that out here though.

Heavy police presence.

I live in a sketchy neighborhood that I love. Here are some superficial things that make it look sketchy: a lot of litter on the streets, people congregating on the street corners selling single cigarettes, too many liquor stores/convenience stores, ugly chain link fences (including my house! lol), I'll maintained yards. I'm sure there's more. But when you fix those things (aka pick up the trash) the block looks so much better.

Grown ass men standing around in the middle of the day- not at a job....

Litter. Incurable defects like liquor stores or open-air drug markets or payday lenders. Unkempt lawns/stoops.

What are the superficial things that make you think a neighborhood is sketchy when you first visit it? Other than the schools and crime rates, what kinds of things would make you hesitate to buy in a neighborhood that is up and coming, or maybe one that you just don't know that well?