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.
Soma West median real estate price is $733,118, which is less expensive than 65.3% of California neighborhoods and 23.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Soma West is currently $3,604, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 63.1% of the neighborhoods in California.
Soma West is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in San Francisco, California.
Soma 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 renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Soma West neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Soma West has a 12.0% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 69.5% 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
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 San Francisco, the Soma West neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
More people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 99.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Also, in the Soma West neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 17.8% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 97.8% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Finally, a unique way of commuting is simply not to. And in the Soma West neighborhood, analysis shows that 28.1% of the residents work from home, avoiding a commute altogether. This may not seem like a large number, but it is a higher proportion of people working from home than is found in 95.7% of the neighborhoods in the United States. One thing NeighborhoodScout's research reveals is that the wealthier and/or more isolated the neighborhood, the greater the proportion of residents who choose to work from home.
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 Soma West neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 64.7% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
The Soma West neighborhood is very densely populated compared to most U.S. neighborhoods. In fact, with 57,476 persons per square mile in the neighborhood, it is more packed with people than 98.7% of the nation's neighborhoods. Even if you drive or take transit to your place of employment, many people enjoy being able to walk in their neighborhood. What many people don't realize is that most of America's premier vacation locations are also very walkable. The Soma West neighborhood is among the top 5% of American neighborhoods in terms of walkability.
In addition, the real estate in the Soma West neighborhood really stands out in the way it looks for a unique reason: this neighborhood has a higher proportion of apartment complexes or high-rise apartments than nearly every neighborhood in the country. Most neighborhoods are a mixture of real estate and housing types, but here it is almost entirely dominated by big apartment buildings and complexes. In fact, 88.2% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 97.9% of American neighborhoods.
Furthermore, the Soma West neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 90.8% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
Diversity
Did you know that the Soma West neighborhood has more Asian and Brazilian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 52.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Asian ancestry and 1.3% have Brazilian ancestry.
Soma West is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 30.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Chinese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Soma West neighborhood. What is interesting to note, is that the Soma West neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (44.3%) than are found in 95.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Soma West neighborhood in San Francisco are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 69.0% of the neighborhoods in America. With 22.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 71.9% 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 Soma West neighborhood, 50.6% 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 28.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (11.2%), and 10.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Soma West neighborhood is English, spoken by 45.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Spanish and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the Soma West neighborhood in San Francisco, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (52.8%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (6.2%), and residents who report German roots (5.6%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (4.8%), along with some French ancestry residents (4.8%), among others. In addition, 44.3% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Soma West neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (50.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (30.9%) ride the bus to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (17.8%) and 9.9% of residents also take the train for their daily commute. The bus provides a valuable service in the Soma West neighborhood of San Francisco by getting a lot of residents to and from work daily, reducing the costs of commuting and reducing some congestion on the roads as well.
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.
