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.
Sand City median real estate price is $860,800, which is more expensive than 49.4% of the neighborhoods in California and 86.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Sand City is currently $3,723, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 64.2% of the neighborhoods in California.
Sand City is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Seaside, California. This is a coastal neighborhood (i.e., is on the ocean, a bay, or inlet).
Sand City 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 occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Sand City neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Sand City has a 15.2% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 79.5% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
Real Estate
Sand City is a neighborhood that is on the ocean, a bay, or inlet. Many times, such places have amenities that bring locals and visitors to the waterfront for recreational activities or to check out the scenery. In some densely populated areas that are less financially well-off, the neighborhood waterfront can be relatively industrial and less open to recreation. In addition to being coastal, Sand City is a very nautical neighborhood, meaning that it is somewhat historic, walkable, densely populated and on the water. This gives the neighborhood a very nautical feel, with some seaside and shipping feel, which some may really enjoy the sights and sounds of.
Occupations
From major sales accounts to fast-food workers, sales and service employees are often the backbone of the local economy. In the Sand City neighborhood, they truly stand out. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis identifies this neighborhood as having a higher percentage of sales and service workers than 99.3% of all American neighborhoods.
Furthermore, the Sand City neighborhood stands out nationally for having a greater proportion of its residents active in the military than 97.4% of other U.S. neighborhoods. If you come here, you will notice military people active in their jobs, going to and from work, and in plain clothes out and about the neighborhood.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 4.7% of residents in the Sand City neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 98.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Also, in the Sand City neighborhood, carpooling is still a popular way to get to and from work. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that 26.5% of commuters carpool here, which is more than in 97.6% of all U.S. 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 Sand City neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 36.9% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 97.0% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
People
The Sand City neighborhood has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (58.3%) than found in 96.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
Diversity
Significantly, 0.6% 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 95.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Sand City neighborhood in Seaside are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 63.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 58.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.6% of U.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 Sand City neighborhood, 48.0% 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 executive, management, and professional occupations, with 28.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (15.0%), and 8.2% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Sand City neighborhood is English, spoken by 50.8% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (42.4%).
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 Sand City neighborhood in Seaside, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (37.0%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (4.6%), and residents who report Asian roots (4.5%), and some of the residents are also of South American ancestry (3.7%), along with some German ancestry residents (2.9%), among others. In addition, 26.9% 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 Sand City neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (52.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (56.9%) 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 (26.5%) . 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.
