What do we mean by a neighborhood?
NeighborhoodScout® uses the official government designation for neighborhoods - the census tract.
Census tracts are small, relatively permanent subdivisions of a county that are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with local authorities all across the country to define real neighborhoods that are bounded to contain areas with homogeneous population characteristics (including economic status, lifestyle, and living conditions). Census tracts usually have 4,000 persons, but can range between 1,500 and 8,000 persons. This is the most fine-grained area for which detailed information is made available from the government, to protect the individual privacy of each of us. Because census tracts are based on population, they vary in size depending on the density of settlement. In urban areas, they are small, and in rural areas they can cover an entire small town or even a few small towns in very rural areas.
Since census tracts are subdivisions of a county, we did a spatial overlay of the census tracts onto city and town boundaries using a geographic information system to properly assign each census tract to its appropriate city or town. Then we named each census tract to the local colloquially recognized neighborhood name for that spot (e.g., Boston, MA (Dorchester). If there was not a name available, we named the census tract by the largest street intersection in the census tract (e.g., Worcester, MA (Lincoln St/Plantation St)
Why we don't use Zip Codes as neighborhoods
Zip codes were developed by the Postal Service for the purpose of delivering mail, but were never intended to define coherent neighborhoods. In addition, Zip Codes can have as many as 10 distinctly different census tracts contained within them. When distinct census tracts are blended together in a single Zip Code, the data reflects their average conditions and often gives a false sense of the area. The result is that potentially great matching neighborhoods can be missed, and erroneous matches can also be produced and delivered to you.
Using census tracts makes great matches possible, and helps people find the areas that are best for them and their families. Because we are committed to providing the highest possible quality and finding the neighborhoods that best meet your criteria, we use census tracts. And, as always, we show you the actual street map of the neighborhood so you know exactly where your best matching neighborhood is located.
What is a Condition Alert?
A condition alert is a condition in the neighborhood that triggers an alert. NeighborhoodScout contains condition alerts to highlight conditions that are extreme, whether good or bad. This helps answer crucial questions about the state of the neighborhood being evaluated, such as:
What are the risks of violent crime here?
Is the risk of home break-ins or other property crimes increasing?
Does real estate here hold its value?
Are the trends in local vacancies or unemployment concerning?
...and dozens more.
Information at a glance that you need to know to invest, appraise or finance a property.
Hayes Valley Northwest median real estate price is $1,626,757, which is more expensive than 82.1% of the neighborhoods in California and 96.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Hayes Valley Northwest is currently $1,820, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 93.2% of California neighborhoods.
Hayes Valley Northwest is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in San Francisco, California.
Hayes Valley Northwest real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 7.8% in Hayes Valley Northwest. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 48.0% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in San Francisco, the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (57.3% ride the bus) than 100.0% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Also, more people in Hayes Valley Northwest choose to walk to work each day (11.0%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
Real Estate
Renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 98.1%, which is higher than 98.8% of the neighborhoods in America. If you were to buy and live in the property you bought here, you would be almost alone in doing so.
In addition, the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood is very densely populated compared to most U.S. neighborhoods. In fact, with 30,301 persons per square mile in the neighborhood, it is more packed with people than 97.0% of the nation's neighborhoods.
Furthermore, the real estate in the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood really stands out in the way it looks for a unique reason: this neighborhood has a higher proportion of apartment complexes or high-rise apartments than nearly every neighborhood in the country. Most neighborhoods are a mixture of real estate and housing types, but here it is almost entirely dominated by big apartment buildings and complexes. In fact, 78.5% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 96.5% of American neighborhoods.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 46.6% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood has more Armenian and Czechoslovakian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Armenian ancestry and 0.8% have Czechoslovakian ancestry.
Hayes Valley Northwest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Korean at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood. What is interesting to note, is that the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (50.9%) than are found in 97.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The Neighbors
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood in San Francisco are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 39.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 89.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood, 37.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 26.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (18.4%), and 16.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood is English, spoken by 38.2% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and African languages.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood in San Francisco, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (21.2%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (15.8%), and residents who report Mexican roots (14.8%), and some of the residents are also of Armenian ancestry (4.0%), along with some Puerto Rican ancestry residents (2.8%), among others. In addition, 50.9% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (46.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (57.3%) ride the bus to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (30.3%) and 11.0% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. The bus provides a valuable service in the Hayes Valley Northwest neighborhood of San Francisco by getting a lot of residents to and from work daily, reducing the costs of commuting and reducing some congestion on the roads as well.
SCOUT’s patented match algorithm identifies the most similar neighborhoods to a subject location, and quantifies the similarity to the subject location. This allows analysts to identify the most similar neighborhoods in a local market area for appraisals, investments, and research.
The algorithm uses 273 neighborhood conditions, identifies the dominant dimensions underlying the conditions and calculates the similarity. This captures the true culture and character of locations, economic conditions, and trends.
The closer to 100% means the locations are nearly identical. 80% is a very good, but not excellent match, and so forth.
