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Neighborhood Watch Signs


Timnwendy

Neighborhood Watch Signs  

26 members have voted

  1. 1. Does the placement of Neighborhood Watch signs in a subdivision help or hurt home sales?

    • It helps home sales by giving a sense of security and community involvement.
      7
    • It hurts home sales because potential buyers are scared away.
      6
    • The signs have no effect on home sales.
      13


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Does the placement of Neighborhood Watch signs in a subdivision help or hurt home sales?

I have been searching for empirical and anecdotal information about this topic, and decided to solicit input from you HAIF'ers. I especially look forward to reading comments from those of you directly involved in home sales

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Scared of what? I don't get it. :huh:

I think the OP is talking about being scared of crime. If there's a neighborhood crime watch, neighborhood crime is the likely cause.

I was talking about being scared of watching neighbors. Mind your own business, neighbors. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for those sounds to come out of my trunk.

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I think the OP is talking about being scared of crime. If there's a neighborhood crime watch, neighborhood crime is the likely cause.

I was talking about being scared of watching neighbors. Mind your own business, neighbors. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for those sounds to come out of my trunk.

I see, I never put much weight in a neighborhood watch sign personally. I would equate it with the idea that stacking five or six 100 club stickers on the rear of your car is going to get you out of a ticket. A baseless tactic.

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I think the OP is talking about being scared of crime. If there's a neighborhood crime watch, neighborhood crime is the likely cause.

I was talking about being scared of watching neighbors. Mind your own business, neighbors. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for those sounds to come out of my trunk.

No, I'm not scared of crime. My subdivision has very low crime. I am a bit worried that the signs might scare off potential buyers.

My neighbors and I are not so naive that we think the signs will make us crime-proof. However, the signs can be a deterrent. We'd like to have that deterrent, in addition to our watchfulness and patrolling, to add to our arsenal of tools.

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No, I'm not scared of crime. My subdivision has very low crime. I am a bit worried that the signs might scare off potential buyers.

The potential buyers' fear is what I was talking about.

My neighbors and I are not so naive that we think the signs will make us crime-proof. However, the signs can be a deterrent. We'd like to have that deterrent, in addition to our watchfulness and patrolling, to add to our arsenal of tools.

If the neighborhood already has very low crime, why do you need a deterrent?

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Those signs mean nothing. I have seen them, but never once have I felt like they actually mean anything. I doubt criminals use them to make decisions. If you're looking to scare off criminals, put a sign up that says everyone in the neighborhood is armed.

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I think neighborhood watch signs are about as effective of "beware of dog" signs put up by people who don't have dogs.

That said, there might be a sprinkling of people who think "oh, good, they have a neighborhood watch, that must make them a safe neighborhood", a larger minority, but still a minority, that will think "ew, a neighborhood watch sign, they must have a crime problem" and give the neighborhood a pass, an even larger minority that will see the NW sign and go investigate the crime in the area to see it it is a problem, but the majority of people will give a neighborhood watch sign about the same thought as they give the "designated bird sanctuary" sign.

If you are going to have a neighborhood watch, though, I think it will be just as effective without the sign. Neighbors noticing suspicious activity, asking a suspicious person who is casing a neighbors' house what they are doing, calling the cops, warning their neighbors, THAT'S what makes neighborhoods safe, not signs.

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I think the signs are lame and have no effect one way or the other.

What sold me on my neighborhood and another neighborhood was seeing old people driving around during the day with crime watch magnets stuck to the side of their car and them giving me the hard eye trying to figure out why I was cruising the neighborhood.

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Those signs mean nothing. I have seen them, but never once have I felt like they actually mean anything. I doubt criminals use them to make decisions. If you're looking to scare off criminals, put a sign up that says everyone in the neighborhood is armed.

From personal experiences, I would say that sometimes crimes aren't committed by people outside the neighborhood, but by people *inside* the neighborhood, especially kids. (I'm not saying that all kids are bad, but some kids don't have much adult supervision these days especially if both of their parents work outside their homes.)

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You know, since you posted this thread and I saw the picture you posted, the other day while driving into my neighborhood I saw that we had a sign like that. We've been living there since October and last week was the first time I even noticed that sign. So, apparently it didn't make one bit of difference to us when we bought.

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