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.
Olde Torrance West median real estate price is $938,143, which is more expensive than 52.8% of the neighborhoods in California and 87.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Olde Torrance West is currently $3,795, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 66.3% of the neighborhoods in California.
Olde Torrance West is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Torrance, California.
Olde Torrance 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 occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Olde Torrance West neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Olde Torrance West. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 16.7%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 82.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (10.0%). This can occur in vacation areas, and occasionally it is also found in neighborhoods that are primarily filled with college students, as some apartments could be vacant when school is not in session. If you live here year round, 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 Torrance, the Olde Torrance West neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Occupations
With 1.9% of employed workers living in the Olde Torrance West neighborhood active in the military, this neighborhood has the distinction of having a higher proportion of people in the military than 95.9% of American neighborhoods. This is a major shaper of the neighborhood's culture and character.
People
According to NeighborhoodScout's research, Olde Torrance West is better suited for first-time home buyers than 86.1% of neighborhoods in the state. Most homes here are priced below the state's median house value, yet maintain comparably good appreciation rates over the last decade relative to other neighborhoods in California. Along with an exclusive multi-metric measure of neighborhood quality developed by NeighborhoodScout that scores high here in this neighborhood, this means that buying into the neighborhood is not only an accessible option but considered a decent first time home buyer choice for building equity in your first home, while being in a quality neighborhood In addition to being an excellent choice for first-time home buyers, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates.
Diversity
Did you know that the Olde Torrance West neighborhood has more Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 53.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Asian ancestry.
Olde Torrance West is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 14.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Japanese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 100.0% 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 Olde Torrance West neighborhood in Torrance are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 88.8% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 6.8% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 58.5% of America's neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the Olde Torrance West neighborhood, 62.7% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 14.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (12.5%), 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 Olde Torrance West neighborhood is English, spoken by 47.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Korean, Japanese, Spanish and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
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 Olde Torrance West neighborhood in Torrance, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (53.5%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (8.5%), and residents who report Irish roots (3.7%), and some of the residents are also of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (2.1%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (1.9%), among others. In addition, 37.6% 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 Olde Torrance West neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (48.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (81.3%) 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.
