survival tips for moving to a big city for the first time

great tips to help you pin them down, including visiting sites like StreetAdvisor, which is
entirely dedicated to neighborhood reviews and information. We'd also suggest checking out
neighborhood details on Foursquare or Yelp, even if you're not specifically looking for
nightlife or restaurants—both apps have a wealth of information entered by locals for locals,
and don't be fooled, there are reviews for entire neighborhoods at Yelp, and some of them are
both hilarious and useful.
Similarly, City Data offers a wealth of information about the entire city, as well as specific
neighborhoods. The site includes cost of living, average home prices, and even local
attractions or famous destinations in the area. Plus, their forums are an invaluable resource—
a treasure trove of information and locals who are willing to help you decide where in town
you'd like to move, visit, or just learn more about. Similarly, Neighborhood Scout can help
you learn more about specific neighborhoods once you've pinned down a few you'd like to
live in. You can start with a bird's eye view of a city, and then zoom in on popular
neighborhoods, up-and-coming ones, or test your luck with neighborhoods that are more
affordable but offer a more authentic and less glossy experience. Whatever you're looking
for, both sites will help you find a few neighborhoods you might want to look into.
Research Rental/Real Estate Markets and the Cost of Living
Once you have an idea where in a city you might want to live, your next step is to see how
much it would cost you to actually live there. Some of the previous sites will give you
averages, like the average home price and average income in the vicinity, but there's no
substitute for looking at what's on the market or available to rent right now. Here are a couple
of options:
For home buyers, Trulia, Zillow, and Redfin all offer virtually every real estate listing in a
given city. If you've bought a home in the past, you're familiar with them, but if not, looking
for home prices on the market in an area is as simple as typing in the zip code or name of the
area you're interested in. You'll see active listings, their asking prices, and even get to see
photos of the home and the surrounding neighborhood. Obviously you're not putting in an
offer just yet, but it's a great way to familiarize yourself with the real estate market in your
preferred neighborhoods.
For renters, Apartments.com, MyApartmentMap, Padmapper, and HotPads all collect the best
of a city's rental listings and make them easy to browse. The real estate sites like Trulia and
Zillow also offer rental listings, but go to the source. These are some of our favorite
apartment search sites for good reason. There's always Craigslist too, but many of these sites
pull in Craigslist listings. Still, if you don't see them, Craigslist has finally added maps, so
they're worth checking out. There's also Lovely, which also caters to top-down
neighborhood-browsing. In any event, the best feature of all of these is that they can help you
figure out which neighborhoods have rentals you can afford and amenities that you'd enjoy
while you live there, and they do it all on a map that you can click and drag around (or drop
down into Google Street View with) easily. Many include information on transit options,