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.
Sun City / Desert Palms median real estate price is $758,749, which is more expensive than 40.5% of the neighborhoods in California and 82.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Sun City / Desert Palms is currently $4,911, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 88.4% of the neighborhoods in California.
Sun City / Desert Palms is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Palm Desert, California.
Sun City / Desert Palms real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Sun City / Desert Palms. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 29.8%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 94.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (21.4%). This can occur in vacation areas, and occasionally it is also found in neighborhoods that are primarily filled with college students, as some apartments could be vacant when school is not in session. If you live here year round, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
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 Palm Desert, the Sun City / Desert Palms 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 Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, priests and therapists would like to think they know the secrets to a truly successful marriage, but according to NeighborhoodScout's research, the folks of the Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood may actually hold the key. 72.6% of its residents are married, which is a higher percentage than is found in 98.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, if you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the Sun City / Desert Palms is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 8.8% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in California, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in California.
Real Estate
Homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood's real estate landscape than 96.0% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 70.7% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer.
In addition, some neighborhoods are made up of apartments. Some consist of row houses, and most - by far - consist of a mixture of housing types. But the Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood stands out due to the total dominance of detached, single-family homes here. There are nearly no other types of residential real estate in the neighborhood. In fact, this neighborhood has a higher proportion of single-family homes in its real estate stock than 95.3% of all American neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
A unique way of commuting is simply not to. And in the Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood, analysis shows that 28.1% of the residents work from home, avoiding a commute altogether. This may not seem like a large number, but it is a higher proportion of people working from home than is found in 95.7% of the neighborhoods in the United States. One thing NeighborhoodScout's research reveals is that the wealthier and/or more isolated the neighborhood, the greater the proportion of residents who choose to work from home.
Diversity
Did you know that the Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood has more Russian and English ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Russian ancestry and 25.0% have English ancestry.
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 Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood in Palm Desert are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 73.7% 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.
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 Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood, 51.6% 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 35.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (7.5%), and 5.7% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
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 Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood is English, spoken by 90.2% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
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 Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood in Palm Desert, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (25.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (15.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (9.6%), and some of the residents are also of Russian ancestry (7.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (5.6%), among others. In addition, 16.3% 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 Sun City / Desert Palms neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (55.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (71.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
