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.
Gunners Lake Village median real estate price is $487,151, which is more expensive than 54.9% of the neighborhoods in Maryland and 65.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Gunners Lake Village is currently $2,428, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 57.3% of Maryland neighborhoods.
Gunners Lake Village is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Germantown, Maryland.
Gunners Lake Village 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 renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Gunners Lake Village neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
In Gunners Lake Village, the current vacancy rate is 1.9%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 87.4% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Gunners Lake Village is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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 Germantown, the Gunners Lake Village neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (16.3% ride the bus) than 97.7% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Real Estate
If you love row houses and attached homes, you will probably really like the Gunners Lake Village neighborhood. The ambiance, the charm, of row houses is something special. And in sheer abundance of row houses, this neighborhood truly stands out. The real estate here has a higher proportion of row houses and attached homes than nearly any neighborhood in America. In fact, 33.3% of the residential real estate here is classified as row houses and attached homes.
In addition, most neighborhoods are composed of a mixture of ages of homes, but the Gunners Lake Village stands out as rather unique in having nearly all of its residential real estate built in one time period, namely between 1970 and 1999, generally considered to be established, but not old housing. What you'll sense when you look around or drive the streets of this neighborhood is that many of the residences look the same because of this similarity of age. In fact, 81.0% of the residential real estate here was built in this one time period.
Occupations
The government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the Gunners Lake Village neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 14.5% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 96.7% of 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 Gunners Lake Village neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 26.1% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
People
With more than 1.6% of residents living with a same sex partner, Gunners Lake Village is truly a neighborhood that stands out from the rest in this regard. In fact, exclusive analysis by NeighborhoodScout reveals that this neighborhood has a greater concentration of same sex couples than 95.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Gunners Lake Village neighborhood has more South American and Puerto Rican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 16.0% of this neighborhood's residents have South American ancestry and 11.4% have Puerto Rican ancestry.
Gunners Lake Village is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 7.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.6% 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 Gunners Lake Village neighborhood in Germantown are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 53.5% of the neighborhoods in America. With 33.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 84.7% 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 Gunners Lake Village neighborhood, 34.9% 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 32.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (17.2%), and 15.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Gunners Lake Village neighborhood is English, spoken by 39.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French, Polish and Langs. of India.
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 Gunners Lake Village neighborhood in Germantown, MD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as South American (16.0%). There are also a number of people of Puerto Rican ancestry (11.4%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (10.1%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (9.5%), along with some German ancestry residents (6.8%), among others. In addition, 41.9% 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 Gunners Lake Village neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (59.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (16.3%) and 9.4% 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.
