The Millennial House Hunt: Finding the Right Neighborhood

This is part two of The Millennial House Hunt, my series on what I, as a millennial, care about and look for when shopping for a home.

Last week, I began my house hunt by finding suitable cities for millennial home buyers. Looking through several articles, I set my eyes on San Francisco, CA as a viable place for millennials to purchase their first home. Today, through Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate's website, we'll look at the most important neighborhood qualities we look for and narrow my search to a more manageable area.

In regards to what's most important to today's millennial home buyer, I think I have reached one truth so far through my vast and varied apartment-life experience:

Location, location, location.

One of the main drawbacks of most of the sites I've come across is that the first-time home buyer is given no guidance about which neighborhoods are best for them. Scattering listings across an entire city is okay, but without context (where is the nightlife, other young people, low crime rates, and something I can afford), we are essentially left to fend for ourselves.

On Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, I took advantage of their search parameters to remedy this. Since I don't plan on starting another series about buying my first car, my first requirement was access to public transportation. I started a search focused on homes near mass transit with a price tag that wouldn't have me resorting to monopoly money. I also factored in home size and only included homes with at least one bedroom (because despite my fantasies of being Harry Potter, I am not planning to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs).