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.
Oak Creek West median real estate price is $1,909,001, which is more expensive than 88.3% of the neighborhoods in California and 97.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Oak Creek West is currently $4,957, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 88.8% of the neighborhoods in California.
Oak Creek West is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Irvine, California.
Oak Creek West real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Oak Creek West 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 6.3% in Oak Creek West. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 58.1% 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 Irvine, the Oak Creek West neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the Oak Creek West neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, a majority of the adults in the Oak Creek West neighborhood are wealthy and educated executives. They own stately homes that tend to maintain high real estate appreciation rates. Their upper-level careers keep them busy, but allow them to live comfortably. If you're an executive and want to keep similar company, consider settling in this neighborhood, rated as an executive lifestyle "best choice" neighborhood for California by NeighborhoodScout's analysis, which rated it as better for executive lifestyles than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in California.
Also, the rate of college educated adults in the Oak Creek West neighborhood is a unique characteristic of the neighborhood. 77.3% of adults here have received at least a 4-year bachelor's degree, compared to the average neighborhood in America, which has 34.3% of the adults with a bachelor's degree. The rate here is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
Executives, managers and professionals make up 74.7% of the workforce in the Oak Creek West neighborhood which, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is a higher proportion of such high-level people than is found in 97.6% of the neighborhoods in America. For this reason, this neighborhood really stands out as unique.
Diversity
Did you know that the Oak Creek West neighborhood has more Iranian and Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Iranian ancestry and 46.2% have Asian ancestry.
Oak Creek West is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Japanese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.8% 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 Oak Creek West neighborhood. What is interesting to note, is that the Oak Creek West neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (50.8%) than are found in 97.8% 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 Oak Creek West neighborhood in Irvine are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 91.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 100.0% of America's neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the Oak Creek West neighborhood, 74.7% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional 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 10.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (8.0%), and 7.1% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Oak Creek West neighborhood is English, spoken by 50.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Langs. of India.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the Oak Creek West neighborhood in Irvine, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (46.2%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (6.8%), and residents who report English roots (5.3%), and some of the residents are also of Irania ancestry (4.4%), along with some South American ancestry residents (3.9%), among others. In addition, 50.8% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in Oak Creek West neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.7% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (71.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (7.3%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
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.
