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.
Van Nuys North median real estate price is $1,003,434, which is more expensive than 61.3% of the neighborhoods in California and 90.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Van Nuys North is currently $2,602, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 71.4% of California neighborhoods.
Van Nuys North is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Los Angeles, California.
Van Nuys North 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 renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Van Nuys North neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
In Van Nuys North, 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 Van Nuys North 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 Los Angeles, the Van Nuys North neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
98.0% of the real estate in the Van Nuys North neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America. With a real estate vacancy rate of only 0.0%, the Van Nuys North neighborhood has a lower vacancy rate than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods, a very elite group. Such a low vacancy rate may indicate very strong real estate demand in the neighborhood combined with some impediments to increasing supply, such as zoning or existing density of development, among other potential reasons.
In addition, the real estate in the Van Nuys North 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, 99.5% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 99.9% of American neighborhoods.
Furthermore, the Van Nuys North 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 97.9% 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.
Also of note, if you like crowded places, then you will probably enjoy the the Van Nuys North neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive data analysis, this neighborhood is more densely populated than 96.9% of neighborhoods in the U.S., with 30,093 people per square mile living here.
People
There is an especially high percentage of incarcerated people (1.9%) living in the Van Nuys North neighborhood.
Occupations
There are more people living in the Van Nuys North neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (60.1%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
Modes of Transportation
More people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 96.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Significantly, 77.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Spanish at home. This is a higher percentage than 98.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Van Nuys North neighborhood. What is interesting to note, is that the Van Nuys North neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (48.7%) than are found in 97.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Van Nuys North neighborhood in Los Angeles are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 81.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 30.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 81.3% 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 Van Nuys North neighborhood, 39.9% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 33.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (15.4%), and 11.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Van Nuys North neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 77.0% of households. Some people also speak English (16.9%).
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 Van Nuys North neighborhood in Los Angeles, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (42.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (3.4%), and residents who report Asian roots (2.2%), and some of the residents are also of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (1.9%), along with some South American ancestry residents (1.4%), among others. In addition, 48.7% 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 Van Nuys North neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (33.6% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (60.9%) 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 (19.6%) and 12.1% 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.
