You can't choose your family and you can seldom choose your neighbors.
If you have more money than God, you can buy yourself into a neighborhood or put enough distance between you and everyone else so that neighbors aren't an issue.
For the rest of us, neighbors aren't usually a deciding factor when finding a place to live. Assuming that you have at least some choice, most folks tread a fine line between what they want and what they can afford.
You want your home to be a convenient commute to work. Affordability can put a big crimp on your commute in a lot of areas. My brother-in-law drove 120+ miles a day round-trip so that his family would be able to move into a new house.
If you already have kids or plan to breed, you're looking for decent schools. Other lifestyle components like convenient shopping, outdoor activities, access to public transit, and density of cultural outlets all might come into play.
Even if you did make your neighbors a high priority, there's no guarantee that they won't move away, rent their house, or croak.
Hard as it may be to admit, there are so many things over which you have little control.
Our little chunk of heaven was a compromise in a lot of ways. The commute is 25 miles, which means 30 minutes on a good day or 90 minutes on a bad day. I would've preferred a house without aluminum wiring, but we're generally happy.
We're thankful for the local amenities like a good school (unless the district shutters it in the coming years), a short walk to light rail (even if it means a two-hour commute to work each way), nearby shopping (our first place in Sunnyvale was stuck in the middle of the vast mobile home wasteland that is north Sunnyvale), and a Home Depot down the street (even if it's run by self-fellating coprophages who can't tell their anus from their nostril).
On the neighbor front, we've had a mixed bag. A huge plus has been the family a few houses down the street. They're about 10 years ahead of us in life with three teenage kids. We spend a lot of time being neighborly, just dropping by to see how things are going, shooting the breeze, borrowing tools, walking to the nearest Baskin-Robbins together, etc.
The rest of the folks around us bring their own little negatives to the table.
Down the street, "Bill" lives in a house that gives real estate agents the cold sweats. Old cars in various states of disrepair line the curb in front. A gigantic tree reduces the front yard to dirt with its shade and shed leaves. Most curious and horrific of all, a huge hole gapes in the second-story roof. Anyone who's lived on the street more than a few years has collected all sorts of stories about Bill. It seems that many years ago, a neighbor noticed smoke billowing out of the upper-story attic. They helpfully pointed out the smoke to Bill and got a quick "thank you" and a slammed door in their face.
According to our neighbor-friend, who also happens to be a dispatcher with the local fire department, there is a standing order that prohibits emergency personnel from entering the house. The reason for this prohibition is that, during the attic fire, firecrews found "gasoline, ammunition, and PCBs" in the house, to quote my neighbor-friend.
My wife recently had a long conversation with Bill and was able to confirm most of the wild rumors first-hand. It seems that, according to Bill, the hole in his roof hasn't been fixed because police helicopters are constantly poking at his house with their landing skids. He's tried to lay tarps over the hole, but every time he gets up on the roof, the police show up with guns drawn because he doesn't have a roofing permit. He's the head of our neighborhood association. ("You didn't know that, did ya?") He's currently working hard to make sure the city doesn't install a cell phone tower at the light rail stop in the middle of the freeway a quarter mile from our street because it would be 60-feet tall. Likewise, he's lobbied City Hall tirelessly to lower the nearest overpass over the freeway because it's "too tall."
His daughters and grandchildren seem to act like normal people. In fact, he's got a tree swing hanging from that gigantic tree in his front yard that his grandkids swing from when they're visiting. Our kids are welcome to use it whenever they want.
Great. Thanks, Bill.
Pakeha