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.
Okemos West median real estate price is $393,360, which is more expensive than 71.3% of the neighborhoods in Michigan and 50.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Okemos West is currently $1,837, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 67.4% of the neighborhoods in Michigan.
Okemos West is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Okemos, Michigan.
Okemos West 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 occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Okemos West neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Okemos West has a 9.6% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 61.2% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
People
An extraordinary 29.1% of the residents of the Okemos West neighborhood are currently enrolled in college. This is such a large part of life in this neighborhood that the neighborhood changes a great deal with the change of semesters and is far quieter during the summer when many students are away.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (11.9% ride the bus) than 96.2% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Occupations
From major sales accounts to fast-food workers, sales and service employees are often the backbone of the local economy. In the Okemos West neighborhood, they truly stand out. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis identifies this neighborhood as having a higher percentage of sales and service workers than 96.1% of all American neighborhoods.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Okemos West neighborhood buck this trend. 21.2% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Okemos West neighborhood has more Canadian and Swedish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Canadian ancestry and 6.3% have Swedish ancestry.
Okemos West is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.1% 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 97.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. In the Okemos West neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 98.3% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
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 Okemos West neighborhood in Okemos are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 72.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 9.9% 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 Okemos West neighborhood, 44.6% 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 38.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (9.5%), and 4.8% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
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 Okemos West neighborhood is English, spoken by 77.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and Vietnamese.
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 Okemos West neighborhood in Okemos, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (16.9%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (11.0%), and residents who report English roots (10.1%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (7.2%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (6.3%), among others. In addition, 19.9% 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 Okemos West neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (42.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (59.6%) 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 (13.3%) and 11.9% 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.
