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.
Belmar median real estate price is $632,566, which is more expensive than 55.6% of the neighborhoods in Colorado and 75.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Belmar is currently $2,609, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 64.2% of the neighborhoods in Colorado.
Belmar is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Lakewood, Colorado.
Belmar 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 townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Belmar neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 6.9% in Belmar. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 52.8% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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 Lakewood, the Belmar neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Belmar neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the Belmar community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, with a nice mix of college students, safety from crime, and decent walkability, the Belmar neighborhood rates highly as a college student friendly place to live, and one that college students and their parents may want to consider. NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that it rates more highly for a good place for college students to live than 89.8% of the neighborhoods in CO. This often also means that the area has certain amenities and services geared towards college students, from undergraduates to graduate students. In addition to being an excellent choice for college students, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for young, single professionals.
Real Estate
One of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Belmar neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 84.9% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 97.5% of all neighborhoods in America.
In addition, homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the Belmar neighborhood's real estate landscape than 97.4% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 81.4% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
Furthermore, the Belmar 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 83.3% 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.
Occupations
With 2.6% of employed workers living in the Belmar neighborhood active in the military, this neighborhood has the distinction of having a higher proportion of people in the military than 97.0% of American neighborhoods. This is a major shaper of the neighborhood's culture and character.
Diversity
Significantly, 2.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Japanese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.4% 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 Belmar neighborhood in Lakewood are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 44.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% of America'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 Belmar neighborhood, 55.8% 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 26.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (9.5%), and 9.5% 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 Belmar neighborhood is English, spoken by 80.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Polish, Japanese and Korean.
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 Belmar neighborhood in Lakewood, CO, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (19.5%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (16.3%), and residents who report Mexican roots (13.0%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (12.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (7.9%), among others. In addition, 17.6% 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 Belmar neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (46.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (58.3%) 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 (16.4%) . 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.
