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.
Lake Buchanan median real estate price is $332,880, which is more expensive than 33.0% of the neighborhoods in Florida and 44.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Lake Buchanan is currently $2,013, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 76.4% of Florida neighborhoods.
Lake Buchanan is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Orlando, Florida.
Lake Buchanan 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 Lake Buchanan neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Lake Buchanan. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 36.8%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 96.9% 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 Orlando, the Lake Buchanan neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 4.2% of residents in the Lake Buchanan neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 97.5% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Also, in the Lake Buchanan neighborhood, carpooling is still a popular way to get to and from work. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that 24.2% of commuters carpool here, which is more than in 96.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Finally, more people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 96.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
Renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Lake Buchanan neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 84.1%, which is higher than 95.0% of the neighborhoods in America. If you were to buy and live in the property you bought here, you would be almost alone in doing so. Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 36.8% of the residential real estate vacant, the Lake Buchanan neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 96.9% 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.
Occupations
From major sales accounts to fast-food workers, sales and service employees are often the backbone of the local economy. In the Lake Buchanan neighborhood, they truly stand out. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis identifies this neighborhood as having a higher percentage of sales and service workers than 96.2% of all American neighborhoods.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Lake Buchanan neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 23.1% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Lake Buchanan neighborhood has more Lebanese and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Lebanese ancestry and 21.5% have Haitian ancestry.
Lake Buchanan is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 21.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Lake Buchanan neighborhood in Orlando are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 93.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 39.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 88.7% 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 Lake Buchanan neighborhood, 39.5% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 24.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (21.6%), and 14.6% in executive, management, and professional 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 Lake Buchanan neighborhood is English, spoken by 57.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include French and Spanish.
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 Lake Buchanan neighborhood in Orlando, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Haitian (21.5%). There are also a number of people of Puerto Rican ancestry (11.8%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (7.4%), and some of the residents are also of Arab ancestry (5.7%), along with some Lebanese ancestry residents (5.5%), among others. In addition, 30.9% 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 Lake Buchanan neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (46.3%) 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 (24.2%) and 12.9% 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.
