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.
Willis Ave / Rayen St median real estate price is $530,801, which is less expensive than 79.8% of California neighborhoods and 30.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Willis Ave / Rayen St is currently $2,589, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 71.9% of California neighborhoods.
Willis Ave / Rayen St is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Los Angeles, California.
Willis Ave / Rayen St 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 townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Real estate vacancies in Willis Ave / Rayen St are 3.5%, which is lower than one will find in 77.2% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Willis Ave / Rayen St is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Real Estate
The Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood is very densely populated compared to most U.S. neighborhoods. In fact, with 36,210 persons per square mile in the neighborhood, it is more packed with people than 97.6% of the nation's neighborhoods.
In addition, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 81.3% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 96.9% of all neighborhoods in America.
Occupations
From major sales accounts to fast-food workers, sales and service employees are often the backbone of the local economy. In the Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood, they truly stand out. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis identifies this neighborhood as having a higher percentage of sales and service workers than 95.5% of all American neighborhoods.
Migration / Stability
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. What is interesting to note, is that the Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (60.8%) than are found in 99.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood has more Armenian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Armenian ancestry.
Willis Ave / Rayen St is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Tagalog, which is the first language of the Philippine region, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood in Los Angeles are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 73.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 28.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 79.1% 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 Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood, 38.5% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 24.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (23.5%), and 13.6% in executive, management, and professional 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 Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 68.8% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
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 Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood in Los Angeles, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (43.4%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (9.2%), and residents who report South American roots (4.2%), and some of the residents are also of Armenian ancestry (2.2%), along with some Russian ancestry residents (1.7%), among others. In addition, 60.8% 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 Willis Ave / Rayen St neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.9% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (67.4%) 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 (13.2%) and 8.4% of residents also ride the bus for their daily commute. 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.
