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.
Moonridge median real estate price is $861,011, which is more expensive than 49.9% of the neighborhoods in California and 86.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Moonridge is currently $3,457, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 41.5% of California neighborhoods.
Moonridge is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Big Bear Lake, California.
Moonridge real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Moonridge neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Moonridge. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 80.3%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 99.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (78.8%). This can occur in vacation areas, and occasionally it is also found in neighborhoods that are primarily filled with college students, as some apartments could be vacant when school is not in session. If you live here year round, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Real Estate
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 80.3% of the residential real estate vacant, the Moonridge neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 99.9% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Moonridge neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Moonridge neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 22.8% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.7% of all neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
In the Moonridge neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 30.6% of residents worked from home. This may not seem like a large number, but Scout's research shows that this is a higher percentage of people working from home than 97.2% of the neighborhoods in America. Often people who work from home are engaged in the creative or technological economy, such as is found in areas around Boston, and in Silicon Valley. Other times, people may be engaged in other businesses like trading stocks from home, or running a small beauty salon.
People
Priests and therapists would like to think they know the secrets to a truly successful marriage, but according to NeighborhoodScout's research, the folks of the Moonridge neighborhood may actually hold the key. 69.0% of its residents are married, which is a higher percentage than is found in 95.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
In addition, if you are an executive or professional seeking a neighborhood affording an executive lifestyle, or just wanting to find where other executives live in the area, the Moonridge neighborhood should be on your list. It has an enviable mix of spacious homes, relatively stable real estate values, and residents that include a number of wealthy executives, managers, and professionals. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis places it as one of the top 13.2% executive lifestyle neighborhoods in the state of California. In addition to being an excellent choice for highly educated executives, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates.
Diversity
Did you know that the Moonridge neighborhood has more Scottish and Arab ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 9.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Scottish ancestry and 5.3% have Arab ancestry.
Moonridge is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.7% 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 Moonridge neighborhood in Big Bear Lake are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 88.5% of the neighborhoods in America. With 14.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 58.8% of U.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 Moonridge neighborhood, 50.5% 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 28.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (13.4%), and 7.5% 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 Moonridge neighborhood is English, spoken by 83.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Polish and Italian.
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 Moonridge neighborhood in Big Bear Lake, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (13.3%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (11.0%), and residents who report German roots (9.8%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (9.8%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (9.4%), among others. In addition, 11.4% 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 Moonridge neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (51.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (22.8%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (67.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
