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.
Avon / Avon Lake median real estate price is $255,060, which is more expensive than 66.4% of the neighborhoods in Iowa and 33.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Avon / Avon Lake is currently $1,632, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 93.2% of the neighborhoods in Iowa.
Avon / Avon Lake is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Des Moines, Iowa.
Avon / Avon Lake real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) mobile homes and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Avon / Avon Lake 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.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 9.6% in Avon / Avon Lake. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 40.1% 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 Des Moines, the Avon / Avon Lake neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 98.1% of all neighborhoods in America, with 42.2% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
Occupations
There are more people living in the Avon / Avon Lake neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (58.7%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
People
With more than 1.9% of residents living with a same sex partner, Avon / Avon Lake is truly a neighborhood that stands out from the rest in this regard. In fact, exclusive analysis by NeighborhoodScout reveals that this neighborhood has a greater concentration of same sex couples than 96.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Avon / Avon Lake neighborhood has more Belgian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Belgian ancestry.
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 Avon / Avon Lake neighborhood in Des Moines are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 72.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 46.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 92.5% 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 Avon / Avon Lake neighborhood, 41.3% 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 24.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (23.3%), and 11.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Avon / Avon Lake neighborhood is English, spoken by 85.2% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (12.6%).
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 Avon / Avon Lake neighborhood in Des Moines, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (17.6%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (17.2%), and residents who report German roots (14.7%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (13.4%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (4.3%), 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 Avon / Avon Lake neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (49.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (85.0%) 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.
