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.
Mission Valley median real estate price is $1,255,157, which is more expensive than 75.0% of the neighborhoods in California and 94.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Mission Valley is currently $6,573, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 99.6% of the neighborhoods in California.
Mission Valley is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in San Diego, California.
Mission Valley real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more 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 Mission Valley neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
In Mission Valley, the current vacancy rate is 0.6%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 92.6% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Mission Valley 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.
Occupations
With 4.1% of employed workers living in the Mission Valley neighborhood active in the military, this neighborhood has the distinction of having a higher proportion of people in the military than 98.4% of American neighborhoods. This is a major shaper of the neighborhood's culture and character.
Furthermore, the Mission Valley neighborhood has a greater proportion of government workers living in it than 95.9% 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.
Modes of Transportation
A unique way of commuting is simply not to. And in the Mission Valley neighborhood, analysis shows that 31.9% of the residents work from home, avoiding a commute altogether. This may not seem like a large number, but it is a higher proportion of people working from home than is found in 97.7% of the neighborhoods in the United States. One thing NeighborhoodScout's research reveals is that the wealthier and/or more isolated the neighborhood, the greater the proportion of residents who choose to work from home.
People
A majority of the adults in the Mission Valley neighborhood are wealthy and educated executives. They own stately homes that tend to maintain high real estate appreciation rates. Their upper-level careers keep them busy, but allow them to live comfortably. If you're an executive and want to keep similar company, consider settling in this neighborhood, rated as an executive lifestyle "best choice" neighborhood for California by NeighborhoodScout's analysis, which rated it as better for executive lifestyles than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in California.
In addition, if you come to know the people here, you will recognize that you're in the company of one of the wealthiest communities in the nation. In fact, a mere 4.8% of America's neighborhoods are wealthier than the Mission Valley neighborhood. Real estate here is exceedingly well-maintained, and similarly, tends to maintain its value over time. The cars driven are mostly luxury brands like Mercedes, Audi, BMW, and Lexus. If the public schools aren't up to snuff, the residents of this neighborhood preferentially send their children to private preparatory schools. Vacation to Disney? Yes, but equally popular are summers in Europe.
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 Mission Valley neighborhood in San Diego 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 95.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 10.2% 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 50.2% 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 Mission Valley neighborhood, 51.2% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 22.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.8%), and 13.5% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Mission Valley neighborhood is English, spoken by 93.9% of households.
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 Mission Valley neighborhood in San Diego, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (14.4%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (9.9%), and residents who report Asian roots (9.1%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (9.0%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (8.3%), among others.
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 Mission Valley neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (54.0% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (67.3%) 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.
