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Window Bars were the norm for some of Oakland's neighborhoods...
These were areas with boarded up homes and lots of foreclosures.
Thing is now these same unwanted homes are now selling in the 400k to 600k range.
Really wish I had bought one of those unwanted Oakland homes back in 2009/2010. Financing was really tough of course for rental properties at the time though. I'm sure many made a fortune buying back then.
I don't know how much the bars would lower value of a specific home, but I guess it's more that the homes with the bars are usually in lower income /high crime areas.
In a city like L.A these are still 500,000 and up though.
Really wish I had bought one of those unwanted Oakland homes back in 2009/2010. Financing was really tough of course for rental properties at the time though. I'm sure many made a fortune buying back then.
2009-12 was the buy opportunity of a lifetime... well, at least a generation.
Homes that had sold for 500k were down 60 to 80%... people had really soured and bailed.
Thing is 6 years later the same homes have regained everything lost plus another 20 to 25%...
About 10 years ago I posted on City-Data something like 50 single family homes in Oakland under 100k...
My neighbors have them on their house. Most on our block dislike them because it does make our block look bad. When I take pictures in front of our home - I have to edit to get the bars out of my pictures so people do not think we live in a bad neighborhood which we don't. It's not perfect but it's not bad either. I'm comfortable here now..
The problem is - the neighbors were robbed (yrs ago) and they are from Colombia . I do not blame them for being scared but getting a good security system would be much better as well as a dog. My humble opinion.
In the 433 unit townhouse complex I lived in Las Vegas, those that had bars on their windows, generally speaking, were the elderly and single females. What was scary was seeing them installed on their 2nd floor windows! What if there were a fire?
When I was first looking at units in this complex, back in 1996, the security bars then indicated to me it wasn't a safe neighborhood, and in all those 22 years, it was always a safe neighborhood.
I can kind of understand why some people may prefer that their neighbors didn't have burglar bars but in the end, it's their choice and saying that they should get a dog, etc is not really anyone's business. Many people get dogs that shouldn't have them and getting a dog so that your neighbors don't have to edit out burglar bars in their facebook pics is not a good reason for someone to get a dog.
What does everyone think about burglar alarm warning signs? Although they are much more socially acceptable than bars, if you look at it objectively, they are usually quite invasive - bold colored, often with the word "warning", etc. And it's often accompanied by an equally brightly colored alarm box installed on the home - often with a flashing light. What about homes with security cameras? Do these things also make you feel like you're in an unsafe neighborhood? Do they lower property values? If it were only about perceived crime, houses with all kinds of warnings about alarms should give you the same feeling as bars do. What about neighborhoods with private security? Why is that needed if there's so little crime? How about those often very prominent neighborhood watch signs with warning any potential criminals that they are being watched. Often these have images of a scary looking criminal with a big red line across it. That puts the topic of crime right in your face when you enter a neighborhood. Surely those might make one think there could be crime issues in the neighborhood? Do they lower property values? No, there is no problem with those.
Or just maybe bars on windows is more of a class and race thing? Maybe we associate burglar bars with non-white neighborhoods and those which have black or latino gangs. Or low class white neighborhoods with meth labs. It's clear from this thread that many people haven't ever seen or noticed ornate victorian burglar bars in nice upper class neighborhoods like Back Bay in Boston or Park Slope in NYC. Perhaps many have only seen burglar bars when they watch "Cops" or in the movie "Colors" or when they see news footage from the LA riots - images all very much associated with race and class. Very few things short of nuclear contamination impact property values of a neighborhood more than perceptions of race and class.
Nice, educated, and "proper" white families protect their neighborhoods and homes from crime with high tech security alarms, panic buttons, perimeter fences, license plate reading cameras, neighborhood crime watches, security cameras, panic rooms, well trained Bernese Mountain Dogs, gates (sometimes manned with security guards), guns, and private security patrols, not bars on windows. Maybe this has more to do with the perception of race and class of a neighborhood than with the perception of crime in a neighborhood.
It's clear from this thread that many people haven't ever seen or noticed ornate victorian burglar bars
in nice upper class neighborhoods like Back Bay in Boston or Park Slope in NYC.
Whether they have seen them or not... your post seems to imply that those old homes were built with the bars.
I can kind of understand why some people may prefer that their neighbors didn't have burglar bars but in the end, it's their choice and saying that they should get a dog, etc is not really anyone's business. Many people get dogs that shouldn't have them and getting a dog so that your neighbors don't have to edit out burglar bars in their facebook pics is not a good reason for someone to get a dog.
What does everyone think about burglar alarm warning signs? Although they are much more socially acceptable than bars, if you look at it objectively, they are usually quite invasive - bold colored, often with the word "warning", etc. And it's often accompanied by an equally brightly colored alarm box installed on the home - often with a flashing light. What about homes with security cameras? Do these things also make you feel like you're in an unsafe neighborhood? Do they lower property values? If it were only about perceived crime, houses with all kinds of warnings about alarms should give you the same feeling as bars do. What about neighborhoods with private security? Why is that needed if there's so little crime? How about those often very prominent neighborhood watch signs with warning any potential criminals that they are being watched. Often these have images of a scary looking criminal with a big red line across it. That puts the topic of crime right in your face when you enter a neighborhood. Surely those might make one think there could be crime issues in the neighborhood? Do they lower property values? No, there is no problem with those.
Or just maybe bars on windows is more of a class and race thing? Maybe we associate burglar bars with non-white neighborhoods and those which have black or latino gangs. Or low class white neighborhoods with meth labs. It's clear from this thread that many people haven't ever seen or noticed ornate victorian burglar bars in nice upper class neighborhoods like Back Bay in Boston or Park Slope in NYC. Perhaps many have only seen burglar bars when they watch "Cops" or in the movie "Colors" or when they see news footage from the LA riots - images all very much associated with race and class. Very few things short of nuclear contamination impact property values of a neighborhood more than perceptions of race and class.
Nice, educated, and "proper" white families protect their neighborhoods and homes from crime with high tech security alarms, panic buttons, perimeter fences, license plate reading cameras, neighborhood crime watches, security cameras, panic rooms, well trained Bernese Mountain Dogs, gates (sometimes manned with security guards), guns, and private security patrols, not bars on windows. Maybe this has more to do with the perception of race and class of a neighborhood than with the perception of crime in a neighborhood.
If you want to be totally honest, then yes, burglar bars are indicative of a black neighborhood, and where I live, black neighborhoods have higher crime. So in the end, burglar bars = higher crime area. No secret there.
FWIW, I have an alarm but it’s totally wireless, so no “bright colored box with a flashing light” whatever that would be. I don’t have an alarm because I live in a high crime area, but I still know I’m not exempt from the occasional thief, and my alarm calls the fire dept if there’s a fire and I’m not home.
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