Check crime rate by address- and more
Is Tampa Florida safe? “is Tampa Bay a safe place to live?” is a common question we hear. Are you looking to buy a home in Tampa Bay? You may be wondering if the areas around Tampa Bay are safe, and how to check crime rate by address or look up crime in a neighborhood. While no city is perfect, Tampa is a relatively safe place to live.
In this blog post, we will give you some tips on how to explore crime in your neighborhood, with tools such as a neighborhood crime map We will also discuss some things to look for when buying a home in a new area.
Check Crime Rate by Address
One of the best ways to explore crime in a new area is to check the crime rate by address. You can do this by searching for the address on the Tampa Police Department’s website. The website will show you a map of all reported crimes in the area, as well as some information about each incident. This is a great way to get a feel for the crime in a particular neighborhood.
What your Agent Can’t Tell You
You know, as agents, we often get comments like, well, you know, of course, I want to live in a quiet neighborhood or get questions. Like, is Tampa safe? Well, it’s no surprise that you want to live in an area that you feel safe in, but did you know your real estate agent is restricted in answering that?
Fair Housing Act
Everyone has their idea of what constitutes safety. So real estate agents are not supposed to share their views on the safety of various neighborhoods. Actually, it’s against our code of ethics and it violates the Fair Housing Act. In fact, realtor.com removed all crime data in December 21 for this exact reason. But we can tell you about resources so that you can make a decision based on your research. I’ll show you some of them in a minute.
Visit possible Neighborhoods
We do recommend that you spend some time going around neighborhoods, driving the neighborhoods you are considering will help you decide on which Tampa neighborhoods to avoid, or the best neighborhoods in Odessa, or wherever it is that you are considering buying a home.
Look at visiting local restaurants and businesses, and talk with residents. If you’re a parent, look for local playgrounds and maybe chat with other parents that you find there and ask them about living there, you know, you can always meet with school officials as well to discuss your options there too. Some communities have a Homeowners Association that could include additional security features like gates and secure access- yet nothing is foolproof, and often gates are open at certain times of day, or during power outages, such as before and after a Hurricane.
Crime rate in a Neighborhood- online searches
Okay. So let’s take a look. You could search “Crime in my neighborhood” or “Check crime rate by address” First crimegrade.org is a great site for being able to get a wonderful overview of what’s happening in an area. And right now this is looking at Pinellas county. Click on the property crime, and reload the interactive map. Then you can zoom in and look right down to the street level to check the crime rate by address or see crime in my neighborhood.
Police calls for Service- Online Resources
The second way of investigating is to look at police calls for service. So you want to make sure that you are researching the right police force. Consider calls for service for Tampa police and it’s displaying incidents that took place in the last 24 to 48 hours from here. Again, you can zoom out to see the overall picture or you can zoom right in to and click on a specific police vehicle to see what the disturbance was about domestic disputes, for example, traffic stops. So bear in mind though that this is giving us the area that specifically the Tampa police force covers. This is a great way to get a feel for the crime in a particular neighborhood, yet Marcy’s Law may make ongoing creation of crime reporting searches obsolete, in an attempt to protect the identity of victims.
Next is neighborhoodscout.com. I want to see, is Tampa safe! Use the different tabs to look for different information on schools, crime, demographics, real estate, and an overview. Zoom in to be able to take a look at the neighborhoods. There is a FEE if you want to access their reports, based on a monthly plan.
If you want to do a criminal search for Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office, (So not just the city of Tampa, but actually the county) then the “crime search for Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office” is a great place to start.
Community Crime Map
One website that people do seem to like a lot because it’s easy to look at is communitycrimemap.com. (Lexis Nexis) So right now I’ve got this set for Pinellas county. You can set the date range that you want to work within. Tampa Police dept. has stopped sending data here already, to comply with Marcy’s law
You can also call the police departments as well.
Florida Sexual Offender Map
The other thing that many people ask us about is the sexual predator and offender map for the state. Florida’s version allows you to search by address, to see where registered offenders live in proximity to the address
Nowhere is crime-FREE
Many factors influence where you want to live, most buyers and renters put safety at the top of their priority list. The fact is no location is completely crime-free. Is Tampa Florida safe? Every person’s got a different idea about what constitutes safe. So take your time and do your homework before making a decision. If we can help you in any way, please reach out. If you’re still not sure whether or not a particular neighborhood is right for you, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our experienced real estate agents. We would be happy to help you find a safe and affordable place to call home! Thanks for reading and we hope this blog post was helpful in deciding “is Tampa a safe place to live”.
Happy house hunting!
links:
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/fl/tampa/crime https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-hillsborough-county-fl/ https://tampa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?
https://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/sops/neighborhoodSearch.jsf
