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.
The Trails / Lee's Park median real estate price is $652,762, which is more expensive than 75.8% of the neighborhoods in Virginia and 78.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in The Trails / Lee's Park is currently $3,252, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 85.9% of the neighborhoods in Virginia.
The Trails / Lee's Park is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
The Trails / Lee's Park real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In The Trails / Lee's Park, the current vacancy rate is 1.4%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 89.8% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in The Trails / Lee's Park 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 Fredericksburg, the The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
Homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood's real estate landscape than 97.8% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 82.6% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
In addition, one way that the The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood really stands out, is that it has more large 4, 5, or additional bedroom homes and real estate than 95.2% of the neighborhoods in America. When you walk or drive around this neighborhood, you'll instantly notice the size of the homes here which definitely makes a strong visual statement.
Occupations
The government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 15.9% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 97.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
People
Astoundingly, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this single neighborhood has a higher concentration of married couples living here than 97.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Whether they have school-aged children or not, married couples are the rule in the The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood. If you are a married couple, you may find many people here with a similar lifestyle, and perhaps common interests. But if you are single, you might not find many other singles here.
In addition, the The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood is a great option for families, as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's research on this neighborhood. The combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes, make this neighborhood among the top 7.8% of family-friendly neighborhoods in the state of Virginia. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a sense of community. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools.
Diversity
Did you know that the The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood has more British and Iranian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.0% of this neighborhood's residents have British ancestry and 1.6% have Iranian ancestry.
The Trails / Lee's Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.3% 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 95.8% 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 The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood in Fredericksburg are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 84.8% of the neighborhoods in America. With 15.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 60.2% 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 The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood, 47.8% 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 21.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (20.2%), and 15.9% 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 The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 82.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French 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 The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood in Fredericksburg, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (11.6%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (11.0%), and residents who report Irish roots (9.8%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (8.6%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (6.5%), among others.
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 The Trails / Lee's Park neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (43.6% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (71.9%) 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 (10.1%) and 7.5% of residents also take the train 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.
