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.
Forest Hills West median real estate price is $915,191, which is more expensive than 58.7% of the neighborhoods in New York and 75.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Forest Hills West is currently $4,319, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 80.5% of the neighborhoods in New York.
Forest Hills West is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Queens, New York.
Forest Hills West real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) townhomes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Forest Hills West neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
In Forest Hills West, the current vacancy rate is 0.7%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 92.3% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Forest Hills West 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.
Modes of Transportation
If you like to ride the train to work, this neighborhood may be for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that 55.3% of the Forest Hills West neighborhood's commuters ride the train to and from work each day, which is more than we found in 99.7% of America's neighborhoods.
Real Estate
Many people dream of living along a street lined with row houses or other attached homes. Such places do often have an abundance of charm. If you are one of these people, the Forest Hills West neighborhood could be your paradise. With 38.9% of the homes and real estate here classified as rowhouses or other attached homes, this neighborhood brims with opportunity to find the right place for you. Only 2.0% of U.S. neighborhoods have more row houses than this neighborhood, making it one of the most interesting things about this special neighborhood.
In addition, the Forest Hills West neighborhood is very densely populated compared to most U.S. neighborhoods. In fact, with 31,086 persons per square mile in the neighborhood, it is more packed with people than 97.1% of the nation's neighborhoods. Being a walkable neighborhood can help increase property values for the simple reason that people enjoy it and value it. To put it plainly, despite our love affair with the automobile, American's enjoy taking to the streets, sidewalks, paths, and courtyards of a place to get a coffee, relax, and take in the sights and sounds. And, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive and first quantitative walkable score index, the Forest Hills West neighborhood is one of the most walkable neighborhoods in America.
People
Think about the people you know personally. How many of them would purchase box seats to opening night at the symphony? How many of them regularly attend gallery openings, or are the first to reserve tickets to opening night at the ballet? If they're like most of us, they don't do any of these things. But if you're among an exclusive crowd of wealthy and refined patrons of the arts, then you'll feel right at home in the Forest Hills West neighborhood: a neighborhood in which more "urban sophisticates" live than 97.0% of neighborhoods across the U.S. Here, your neighbors are defined as having urbane tastes in literature, music, live theatre and the arts. They are wealthy, educated, travel in style, and live a big city lifestyle whether or not they live in or near a big city.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Forest Hills West neighborhood buck this trend. 27.8% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Forest Hills West neighborhood has more Brazilian and Hungarian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Brazilian ancestry and 3.2% have Hungarian ancestry.
Forest Hills West is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Russian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.9% 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 Forest Hills West neighborhood in Queens are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 81.5% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 9.0% 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 53.2% of America'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 Forest Hills West neighborhood, 63.1% 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 20.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (13.2%), and 6.9% 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 Forest Hills West neighborhood is English, spoken by 46.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Russian, Spanish and Arabic.
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 Forest Hills West neighborhood in Queens, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (28.2%). There are also a number of people of Brazilian ancestry (7.3%), and residents who report Italian roots (6.7%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (5.1%), along with some English ancestry residents (4.3%), among others. In addition, 37.6% 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 Forest Hills West neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (47.4% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (55.3%) take the train to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (19.3%) . This neighborhood is distinguished by the high number of residents who take the train to work each day, which can be a very good way to get to work at a lower cost and with less pollution.
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.
