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.
Pleasant Valley Northwest median real estate price is $397,221, which is more expensive than 71.1% of the neighborhoods in Texas and 53.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Pleasant Valley Northwest is currently $1,232, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 86.5% of Texas neighborhoods.
Pleasant Valley Northwest is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Austin, Texas.
Pleasant Valley Northwest real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
In Pleasant Valley Northwest, the current vacancy rate is 0.0%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 100.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Pleasant Valley Northwest is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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
90.5% of the real estate in the Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America. This neighborhood has the distinction of having one of the lowest real estate vacancy rates of any neighborhood in America. With just 0.0% of the real estate vacant, this indicates an exceptionally strong demand for real estate in the Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood, and/or an issue with creating enough supply for the demand. This could have the effect of increasing real estate prices, increasing supply to meet demand, or both.
In addition, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 84.0% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 97.3% of all neighborhoods in America.
People
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, an extraordinary 19.3% of the residents of the Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood are currently enrolled in college. This is such a large part of life in this neighborhood that the neighborhood changes a great deal with the change of semesters and is far quieter during the summer when many students are away.
Modes of Transportation
More people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 99.9% 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 Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 19.6% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood has more British and Greek ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.0% of this neighborhood's residents have British ancestry and 4.2% have Greek ancestry.
Pleasant Valley Northwest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.9% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. In the Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 97.8% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
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 Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood in Austin are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 90.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% of America'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 Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood, 49.8% 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 32.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (13.2%), and 5.0% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
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 Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood is English, spoken by 63.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, German/Yiddish, African languages and Vietnamese.
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 Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood in Austin, TX, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (15.0%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (12.2%), and residents who report Asian roots (11.3%), and some of the residents are also of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (11.0%), along with some British ancestry residents (5.0%), among others. In addition, 23.3% 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 Pleasant Valley Northwest neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (51.0% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (41.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (38.7%) . 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.
