Considering municipal bonds? Let waiter give you a tip. (Commentary).

ARE you interested in a municipality's credit quality? Do what the professionals do. On the way from the airport, talk to your cab driver.

When you get to your hotel, ask the bellman how full it is. When you go out to eat, quiz your waiter about more than the specials of the day.

These are just a few of the ways municipal bond analysts supplement financial analyses with anecdotal information about the local economy.

"Waiters are good, since they have a feel for both local and out-of-town business;' said John Mousseau, who helps manage $300 million in municipal bonds at Cumberland Advisors in Vineland, N.J. "And you cannot discount the benefit of having a couple at a local watering hole and just listening."

Walking around and seeing conditions on the ground isn't a substitute for poring over the official statement or offering bond issue, line-by-line and page-by-page. They don't chill it due diligence for nothing. Yet sometimes a walk around can be just the thing.

Consider bond issues sold for housing developments centered on golf courses in the mid-1990s in California Some of these unrated bends carried coupons of 8 percent and higher, a very attractive return at a time most munis yielded around 5 percent.

Bond buyers would have benefited from a walk around the property.

"If you look on the map, one of these places is 'Death Valley-adjacent,"' said Bud Byrnes, chief executive of RH Investments, a muni bond broker in Encino.

"There's nothing out there. I remember we stopped by the nearest firehouse and said, 'Hey, we notice that fire hydrants have been put in,' and they told us, 'Yeah, and you could have pulled them up and taken them with you. They look pretty, but they're not connected to anything.

Sometimes there's more art than science to assessing a bond issue. More cultural institutions, for example, have sold bonds this year to refinance their outstanding debt or to finance expansion without dipping into their endowments. Perhaps you have thought about investing in their bonds. Next time you attend an event at one of these institutions, you might well ask, "Where did all these old people come from?"

If you are restricted to the paper chase, search out the key fact, the one thing that is of crucial importance to the issuer in repaying its debt.

The assessed value per capita of Edgartown, a town on Martha's Vineyard, is $908,313.

If you're interested in safety, this is for you. Perhaps I should make sure. Martha's Vineyard is awfully nice in July.

Joe Mysak is a columnist with Bloomberg News.