Tip:

Take Redfin or one of the other tools. Switch to sold homes for the last year filter. Draw a circle around an area you are interested plus several blocks surrounded. You can see the flow of property values then. This gives you a good idea of if you are a decent area or not.

You will want to see the overall theme of house prices to start. So is it a $100k area, $250k area, or $400k area. If you are seeing prices peak at $100 or $125k with lots of sub-50k sales, and you look at the pictures and there isn't a huge difference, you are probably looking at a rental area, downtrodden area that lost the jobs 4 decades ago, or a crime filled area.

If you are seeing prices consistently in one of the higher brackets, with very few lower price homes, you are probably looking at an established or mostly gentrified community and the benefits that come with that.

If you see an area that has a strong mix, you are probably looking at an area that is gentrifying - especially if the higher price homes appear to be flips or rehabbed and the lower priced ones look to be grandma's house. The ratio of upper priced homes to lower priced homes will tell you how far along in gentrification the place is. Less than 25% of the homes being rehabbed - you are looking at a speculation play that may be on the boarder of a good area. 25-75% and you have an established area on the upswing. North of 75% and you pretty much have completed or are nearing completion of gentrification.

You can take this information and overlay school quality, crime rates, and public transit to get a strong feeling for how a community is.

Personally I like the old camp or mill towns in A/A+ school districts that have development around them. Places like Trafford or Cuddy. You can get a an older home with good bones for under $200k in an area without much crime and an excellent place to raise a family near highways. You won't have much public transit usually, but with work from home that isn't a show stopper.