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.
Victoria Heights median real estate price is $247,564, which is less expensive than 68.3% of Georgia neighborhoods and 69.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Victoria Heights is currently $2,600, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 65.8% of the neighborhoods in Georgia.
Victoria Heights is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
Victoria Heights 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 small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Victoria Heights neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
In Victoria Heights, the current vacancy rate is 2.5%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 83.1% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Victoria Heights 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 Sandy Springs, the Victoria Heights neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
In the Victoria Heights neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 35.4% 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 98.9% 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
The types of households in a neighborhood can tell a lot about the character and lifestyle of those living here. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood, above nearly every neighborhood in America, has a greater percentage of its residents living alone: 60.1%. This is a higher percent living alone than we found in 98.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Often residents who live alone are new arrivals to an area who are single, and often senior citizens who have lost a spouse.
Real Estate
The Victoria Heights 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 88.4% 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.
In addition, most neighborhoods are composed of a mixture of ages of homes, but the Victoria Heights stands out as rather unique in having nearly all of its residential real estate built in one time period, namely between 1970 and 1999, generally considered to be established, but not old housing. What you'll sense when you look around or drive the streets of this neighborhood is that many of the residences look the same because of this similarity of age. In fact, 81.4% of the residential real estate here was built in this one time period.
Occupations
Executives, managers and professionals make up 71.5% of the workforce in the Victoria Heights neighborhood which, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is a higher proportion of such high-level people than is found in 96.2% of the neighborhoods in America. For this reason, this neighborhood really stands out as unique.
Diversity
Did you know that the Victoria Heights neighborhood has more Sub-Saharan African and French ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 17.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Sub-Saharan African ancestry and 10.3% have French ancestry.
Victoria Heights is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Portuguese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.3% 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 Victoria Heights neighborhood in Sandy Springs are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 47.6% of the neighborhoods in America. With 49.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 93.7% 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 Victoria Heights neighborhood, 71.5% 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 14.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (7.7%), and 7.7% 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 Victoria Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Portuguese and Langs. of India.
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 Victoria Heights neighborhood in Sandy Springs, GA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (20.2%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (17.9%), and residents who report Asian roots (14.9%), and some of the residents are also of French ancestry (10.3%), along with some German ancestry residents (7.7%), among others. In addition, 14.9% 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 Victoria Heights neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (55.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (58.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (6.3%) . 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.
