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.
Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights median real estate price is $309,604, which is less expensive than 94.7% of California neighborhoods and 59.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights is currently $2,195, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 82.9% of California neighborhoods.
Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights is a remote neighborhood (based on population density) located in Twentynine Palms, California.
Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 57.5%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 99.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (39.2%). 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
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.
Modes of Transportation
A unique way of commuting is simply not to. And in the Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood, analysis shows that 50.6% 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 99.9% 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.
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 Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 46.3% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 99.3% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Real Estate
Despite all of the residential real estate here in the Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 57.5%, which is higher than 99.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, this neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 21 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 94.6% of America.
Occupations
The Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood stands out nationally for having a greater proportion of its residents active in the military than 98.5% 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.
Furthermore, each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 98.4% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 65.8% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Diversity
Significantly, 9.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Italian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.7% 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 Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood in Twentynine Palms are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 71.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 7.2% 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 58.1% 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 Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood, 33.1% 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 30.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (24.1%), and 7.7% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
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 Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 84.2% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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 Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood in Twentynine Palms, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (11.6%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (11.2%), and residents who report English roots (7.5%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (5.0%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (4.9%), among others.
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 Desert Heights / Sunfair Heights neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (65.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (36.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (7.4%) and 6.0% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
