The Best Cities for Trick-or-Treating

It’s that time of year when we’re surrounded by pumpkins (and pumpkin spice), sweaters, haunted houses, costumes and, of course, candy. If you have children in your life, you’ve probably been hearing a lot about who/what they want to be for Halloween and trick-or-treating is only a couple weeks away. In an ideal world, we’d all be so lucky to satisfy our sweet tooth with free candy, but that’s not quite how it goes. But, hey, we can dream, right?

And that got us thinking about where the best places to get those delicious treats are. We all remember what trick-or-treating was like as kids, planning our route to get the most out of those few hours before our parents called us home. There was always that neighborhood you had to visit — the one that gave out the full-size candy bars. Sure, you may know where that is in your area, but who really has the best candy on the map?

Thanks to Zillow, we aren’t left guessing. The online housing marketplace released its eighth annual Trick-or-Treat Index, which revealed where kids may be able to get the most candy, in the quickest amount of time, and in the safest areas.

To do this, the Zillow economists looked at the Zillow Home Value Index to determine the median home values in cities throughout the country. From there, they considered the single-family home density (how close each house is to its neighbor), and the share of the population that is younger than 10-years-old. Lastly, they looked at crime rates.

So, grab your pumpkin bucket or pillow case and get ready to load up on all your favorites, especially if you live in one of these 10 cities.

Philadelphia
San Jose, California
San Francisco
Milwaukee
Los Angeles
Phoenix
Denver
Portland, Oregon
Seattle
Columbus, Ohio

And, if you’re staying home to hand out the goodies to all the princesses and pirates who come your way, it’s important to remember that you shouldn’t break your budget just to make your house the favorite stop on the block. You certainly don’t want one night out of the year to land you in credit card debt, when giving away those fun-size candy bars will suffice. You can see how your spending habits are affecting your financial goals, like maintaining a good credit score, for free on Credit.com.

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