So your friendly neighborhood Realtor got himself in a bit of a heated conversation when I answered this question posted on Trulia the other day.
Question was, and I quote;
“We may be moving to Miami in the next few months. We have been looking at homes in Coconut Grove but been told that the Grove has some bad neighborhoods. Can anybody tell me what areas are better than other’s.
Now for those who are not familiar with our lovely piece of heaven on earth, we have what some folks (read Sarah Palin) would consider a BAD neighborhood……folks there are “different”.
Several politically correct answers were posted by very good Realtor’s, but each one knew EXACTLY what the questions intent was….and answered accordingly.
I on the other hand answered a bit more directly and stated and I quote;
Hi (person),
Both (Realtors) (very good Realtors BTW) gave excellent answers. Coconut Grove is a very eclectic neighborhood and also quite small compared to Gables/Pinecrest…so if you have these concerns maybe our neighborhood is not for you.
Like (other Realtor), I’ve been here a long time (since 65′) and if you can’t handle diversity…..Miami is a big place, lots of other neighborhoods to look at.
Good Luck,
Well that did not go over well with (person) and I heard back that I had “Issues”………
I’ll tell you my Issues;
My gardener is from that BAD neighborhood and the other day as I was walking out of my home, I saw him running frantically going door to door trying to find someone to “vouch” for him because “one of those people’ called the police to say that there was a “different” person on a bike on THEIR street.
To see his fear, confusion and relief once he saw me was sad, no one should be put through that because they are “different”
So (person), I live very close to that “bad” neighborhood and as I said before, if you have the “stones” to ask the questions, at least have the same “stones” to accept an honest answer.