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.
Virginia Lake median real estate price is $619,936, which is more expensive than 69.4% of the neighborhoods in Nevada and 72.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Virginia Lake is currently $1,630, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 88.9% of Nevada neighborhoods.
Virginia Lake is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Reno, Nevada.
Virginia Lake real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Virginia Lake neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 7.4% in Virginia Lake. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 50.0% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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.
People
Divorcees may find friendship and understanding in this neighborhood, as 29.6% of its residents are divorced. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis found that this divorce rate is higher than in 99.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 10.7% of residents in the Virginia Lake neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 99.7% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Also, our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (10.1% ride the bus) than 95.1% 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
The Virginia Lake neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 98.4% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
In addition, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Virginia Lake neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 97.4%, which is higher than 98.6% of the neighborhoods in America. If you were to buy and live in the property you bought here, you would be almost alone in doing so.
Furthermore, the real estate in the Virginia Lake neighborhood really stands out in the way it looks for a unique reason: this neighborhood has a higher proportion of apartment complexes or high-rise apartments than nearly every neighborhood in the country. Most neighborhoods are a mixture of real estate and housing types, but here it is almost entirely dominated by big apartment buildings and complexes. In fact, 85.8% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 97.6% of American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Virginia Lake neighborhood has more Brazilian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Brazilian ancestry.
Virginia Lake is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Mon-Khmer, which is the dominant language of Cambodia, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.3% 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 Virginia Lake neighborhood in Reno are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 21.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 72.4% 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 Virginia Lake neighborhood, 39.5% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 25.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (24.6%), and 10.3% in executive, management, and professional occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Virginia Lake neighborhood is English, spoken by 57.5% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (39.1%).
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 Virginia Lake neighborhood in Reno, NV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (47.8%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (7.9%), and residents who report German roots (7.5%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (6.2%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (3.5%), among others. In addition, 28.4% 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 Virginia Lake neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (47.0% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (57.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also bicycle to get to work (10.7%) and 10.1% of residents also ride the bus 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.
