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.
Interlaken median real estate price is $718,010, which is more expensive than 36.4% of the neighborhoods in California and 81.2% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Interlaken is currently $4,434, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 83.3% of the neighborhoods in California.
Interlaken is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Watsonville, California.
Interlaken real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Interlaken 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 Interlaken, the current vacancy rate is 2.1%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 85.9% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Interlaken 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 Watsonville, the Interlaken neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Occupations
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the Interlaken 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 99.4% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
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 Interlaken neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 42.4% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 98.8% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Modes of Transportation
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the Interlaken (25.6%) than in 97.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Interlaken neighborhood has more Mexican and Croatian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 80.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Mexican ancestry and 0.8% have Croatian ancestry.
Interlaken is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 68.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Spanish at home. This is a higher percentage than 97.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Interlaken neighborhood in Watsonville are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 83.5% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 1.5% 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 76.9% of America's neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the Interlaken neighborhood, 31.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 22.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.3%), and 13.6% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Interlaken neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 68.5% of households. Some people also speak English (31.3%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the Interlaken neighborhood in Watsonville, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (80.4%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (3.3%), and residents who report Scots-Irish roots (3.1%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (3.1%), along with some Spanish ancestry residents (1.8%), among others. In addition, 30.1% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in Interlaken neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (41.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (62.7%) 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 (25.6%) . 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.
