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.
Shadow Lawn / Deal Park median real estate price is $1,058,181, which is more expensive than 90.5% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey and 91.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Shadow Lawn / Deal Park is currently $4,307, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 84.8% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey.
Shadow Lawn / Deal Park is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Oakhurst, New Jersey.
Shadow Lawn / Deal 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 small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Shadow Lawn / Deal Park. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 30.8%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 95.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (23.0%). 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 Oakhurst, the Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 14.7% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.5% of all neighborhoods in America.
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 Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 40.9% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 98.4% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
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 2.7% of residents in the Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 95.1% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Real Estate
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 30.8% of the residential real estate vacant, the Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 95.0% 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.
Diversity
Did you know that the Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood has more Arab and Brazilian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 8.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Arab ancestry and 3.4% have Brazilian ancestry.
Shadow Lawn / Deal Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Greek at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.0% 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 Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood in Oakhurst 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 85.8% of the neighborhoods in America. With 17.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 65.4% 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 Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood, 43.1% 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 33.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (12.5%), and 11.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 86.0% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.9%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood in Oakhurst, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (17.0%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (13.3%), and residents who report German roots (12.7%), and some of the residents are also of Arab ancestry (8.6%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (5.8%), 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 Shadow Lawn / Deal Park neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (33.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (14.7%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (59.4%) 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 (12.9%) and 7.6% 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.
