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.
Fair Haven median real estate price is $508,189, which is more expensive than 53.6% of the neighborhoods in Virginia and 59.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Fair Haven is currently $3,196, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 76.9% of the neighborhoods in Virginia.
Fair Haven is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Alexandria, Virginia.
Fair Haven 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 single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Fair Haven neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Fair Haven has a 12.2% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 71.3% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
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.
Occupations
The Fair Haven neighborhood has a greater proportion of government workers living in it than 97.0% of the neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. This is a unique feature of this neighborhood, and one that shapes its character.
Real Estate
The real estate in the Fair Haven 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, 75.0% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 95.9% of American neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
In the Fair Haven neighborhood, 11.0% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 95.7% 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 Fair Haven neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 95.5% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
Diversity
Did you know that the Fair Haven neighborhood has more Romanian and Austrian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Romanian ancestry and 1.0% have Austrian ancestry.
Fair Haven is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.0% 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 98.1% 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 Fair Haven neighborhood in Alexandria are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 69.8% of the neighborhoods in America. With 18.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 66.5% 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 Fair Haven neighborhood, 65.2% 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 19.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions (14.7%), and 8.5% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Fair Haven neighborhood is English, spoken by 71.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French and African languages.
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 Fair Haven neighborhood in Alexandria, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (15.1%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (15.1%), and residents who report Asian roots (13.7%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (13.5%), along with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry residents (6.0%), among others. In addition, 24.3% 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 Fair Haven neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (32.2% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (55.8%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (11.0%) . 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.
