What a Realtor is not going to tell you, find it using Web
Wall Street Journal has this great story about how to find information about an area. The Realtor you are working with is not supposed to tell you anything except the known facts about the house he is showing. Anything more than that could be termed as Steering (influencing you to not buy house in a given area or to buy a particular house). Anxious buyers want to know a lot about the area, especially the ones that are relocating. Here are the links that WSJ points to-
Sex-offender information -
School Ratings and Information -
Crime Matters - Call the area Sherrif's office and get the information. Some other sites are
Environment -
Demographics -
Other than that, the buyer is surely interested in traffic situation in the area (after all, one has to go to work, right?). For DC Metro, one can go to http://www.commuterpage.com/traffic.htm or http://wtop.com/?sid=590400&nid=6 . One can also use Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) to see what amenities are around the area (the satellite view is amazingly clear and provides very detailed information).
And of course, driving through the neighborhood during morning, lunch and evening hours can provide lots of valuable visual information, including who hangs out around the street corners.