REALLY NICE WELL-BUILT, WELL-LOCATED, AFFORDABLE HOUSES that are not for sale.

Another very important factor is neighborhood. Ask any real estate broker to name the three most important factors in buying a property, and he’ll say: “Location, location, location.” Now ask him to name the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, and he’ll say: “Location, location, location.” This tells us that we should not necessarily be paying a whole lot of attention to real estate brokers.

If you have school-age children, by far the most important factor in selecting a neighborhood is, of course, the proximity of the nearest Toys Backwards “R” Us store. You will be spending a great deal of your time and disposable income there, because from kindergarten through about sixth grade, the average child attends approximately 36,500 birthday parties. Your child will go through a period, usually around first grade, when his classmates will have as many as six birthdays apiece per year, meaning you’ll spend virtually all of your Saturdays racing to Toys Backwards “R” Us, then racing off to the party, leaving a trail of flattened pedestrians because you are wrapping the present as you drive. But all the hassle is worth it when you see the look on the birthday child’s face when he or she rips open the present and remarks with delight: “Hey! I already got this!”

Once you have selected several potential neighborhoods, you should drive around to evaluate them, using this convenient ...

Neighborhood Checklist

Note What The Residents Do With Cars That No Longer Function Good Neighborhood: They get rid of them. Bad Neighborhood: They keep them all forever, arranged tastefully on their lawns, as if expecting the Car Fairy to come one night and whisk all the cars away and leave everybody a nice shiny quarter. Note What Kind of Names The Local Streets Have Good: jasmine View Court Terrace Bad: Interstate 95