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.
Purgitsville median real estate price is $256,016, which is more expensive than 67.8% of the neighborhoods in West Virginia and 29.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Purgitsville is currently $845, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 97.8% of West Virginia neighborhoods.
Purgitsville is a remote neighborhood (based on population density) located in Romney, West Virginia.
Purgitsville real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Purgitsville neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Purgitsville. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 32.2%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 95.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
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 Romney, the Purgitsville neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Divorcees may find friendship and understanding in this neighborhood, as 21.8% of its residents are divorced. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis found that this divorce rate is higher than in 97.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
Our research reveals that 89.7% of commuters who live in the Purgitsville neighborhood get to work each day by driving alone in their automobiles, which is a higher proportion than 96.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 32.2% of the residential real estate vacant, the Purgitsville neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 95.9% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
In addition, this neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 44 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 90.2% of America.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the Purgitsville neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 41.9% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 95.5% of American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Purgitsville neighborhood has more Czechoslovakian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Czechoslovakian ancestry.
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 Purgitsville neighborhood in Romney are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 82.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 37.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 87.7% of U.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 Purgitsville neighborhood, 41.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 26.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (22.1%), and 7.5% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Purgitsville neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.6% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.9%).
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 Purgitsville neighborhood in Romney, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (20.6%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (14.2%), and residents who report English roots (7.8%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (4.5%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (4.0%), 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 Purgitsville neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.0% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (89.7%) 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.
